


Stay With Me

by Beezleebub



Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domesticity, Getting Together, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02, Small Town Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25831033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beezleebub/pseuds/Beezleebub
Summary: Boyd no longer wants to be the man Harlan's molded him into. And Raylan, well he doesn’t know much other than that Boyd Crowder is a very dangerous man and a liar and he should be closing the door in his face not letting him waltz right in again and again and, shit, maybe one more time...An alternate season two with Raylan/Boyd as canon after Bulletville.
Relationships: Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens
Comments: 64
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**I.**

Raylan’s hand hesitated above his sidearm as he saw Boyd Crowder shutting his motel door - that Raylan was certain he had locked - behind him. Boyd looked wrecked, from the bruise across his cheek, the split lip, to the small gash across his brow bone. The real damage was in his eyes, his posture, the way his hair was stuck up in some places but matted down in others. There was blood and dirt on his face and mud under his nails.

His gaze moved from Rayaln to the bodies still exuding blood into the carpet.

“What in God’s name, Raylan?” His voice was hoarse, as if he had been doing a lot of shouting.

“You’re daddy sent them after me.”

“Dear lord.”

“What are you doing here?” Raylan asked.

If was difficult to say if Raylan had ever seen a Crowder grasp so desperately for words, he couldn’t say he had seen a Crowder look so demoralized at all. Bowman hadn’t been the sharpest in the holler, but Boyd was more like Bo than Raylan was strictly comfortable with allowing himself to consider. He was sharp, manipulative when he needed to be, and as articulate as a devil. 

“I am lost, Raylan.”

Raylan felt his brows draw together. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I sent my flock to slaughter.”

Raylan stepped closer to Boyd, his hand remaining at his hip, fingers resting over the leather of his holster. He didn’t want to draw, he didn’t know that he would miss a second time. He had a cold feeling in his belly.

“I’m not following you, Boyd.”

“My daddy,” he said shakily. “He- he killed all my men, Raylan. He killed all of them.”

He reached out for Raylan, clutching his shirt around his middle, like he was seeking something, so Raylan didn’t stop him. He grabbed Boyd by the elbow and guided him into a chair. Boyd rubbed his palms together and Raylan half thought he was about to start praying. He looked haunted and seeing such a thing in a man that, not so very long ago, was living in the hollowed out remains of God’s house with hate decorating its walls and his name practically echoing through the space like a wretched thing, confused Raylan.

Seeing him now, this way, he looked an awful lot like the boy who watched Raylan drive away at nineteen. 

His phone began to ring.

“What happened to Arlo?”

Raylan, who had half forgotten his father was in the bathroom, replied: “He took a bullet.”

Bo was on the phone, he had Ava. Raylan supposed none of this should have come has a surprise. Boyd kept his eyes on his hands as Raylan spoke to Bo, but he knew he was listening. He has mud caked under his nails and in the creases of his palms.

“He has a cabin out in Brogie Holler,” Boyd shared. 

“Is that right?”

“I know every inch of Brogie Holler.”

Raylan didn’t know if this was revenge for Boyd, and at this point, Raylan didn’t care.

“You were telling the truth, huh?” Raylan asked on the drive. He didn’t know why he needed to know, but he did. “This conversion?”

“Was I? I don’t know now, Raylan, I’m so confused.”

“I believe you,” he said.

He didn’t know why he said it, but it was true. He believed Boyd was telling the truth, the truth as he knew it in this moment, and Raylan was willing to reciprocate. 

Boyd looked at him. “Do you believe in God?”

“I do. Do you still?” he asked. “Or has your faith been shaken as quickly as it came to you? You still thinking I saved your soul by shooting you through the chest?”

He said earnestly, “I don’t know, Raylan. I _am_ confused. There is something to be said for self-aggrandizement and delusion.” Boyd clenched his hands in his lap. “I buried my- my men,” he continued quietly. “I wanted to say something, read them something pretty from the Bible. When I tried, I couldn’t find the words.”

The verses and psalms had become nothing more than words; ink on a page. Doubt had begun to creep in. Boyd’s beliefs had been shattered and a piece of it was buried with every grave he dug.

Raylan shot a glance at Boyd to see the man looking at him with that dark eyed stare and the blackness outside the car felt suddenly cacophonous, like in the mines.

“I set all of this into motion, didn’t I, Raylan?”

There was remorse in his tone, Raylan had never heard it there before. It made him feel strange, like this was unnatural. This wasn’t what Boyd was meant to be, but Raylan didn’t think he was meant to be the guy with the swastika on his arm hiding guns under a campfire. 

Part of Raylan couldn’t blame him, he had been down in those mines as well, and he did what he needed to in order to get out alive. He supposed Boyd was just doing the same. That part of Raylan, though, was small and easy to push down.

Raylan gave him his sidearm, against better judgement. He was sure he’d have a great time explaining that to Art.

“Understand, Boyd. You take advantage of this situation, I'll hunt you down like a dog. If I’m not dead… and _you’re_ not dead.”

Boyd looked at Raylan through the opened door. “You afraid you give me a gun, I’d turn it on you?”

Raylan just smiled. He didn’t have an answer, but he did feel he could trust Boyd to not sell him out to Bo, that was more than Arlo could do for him.

Things moved fast, first Bo dropped, dead in an instant, and then Boyd. Boyd tripped over his long legs, moving towards the cabin. Raylan grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him to his feet, causing Boyd to gasp, pain tearing through him.

Ava was in the cabin, taking cover in the back room that might have once been a bedroom, a gun in her lap. She looked shaken up, a little pissed off, but alright. Raylan pulled Boyd inside and dropped him on the floor. He grunted and rolled onto his back with a loud groan. He pressed a palm against his shoulder, just below his collarbone and Raylan knew he would be alright, he’d survived worse anyway.

Raylan’s confidence didn’t save Boyd any pain. 

“You alright, Ava?”

“I’m alive,” she called back.

“Boyd?”

“Just peachy, Raylan.” He looked white as a sheet as red seeped between his fingers.

By the end of things the three of them were the only things left alive in Brogie Holler. The girl tried making a run for it in their SUV, Raylan shot the tires out and Boyd shot her dead through the drivers side window. Raylan approached Boyd carefully, the scope rifle held tightly in his good arm, the other still bleeding steadily from the shoulder. Raylan could see the vice like grip he had on the weapon, his knuckles bone white.

“Boyd? Where’s Ava?”

“Running through the woods,” he said. “Back towards Harlan.”

Raylan nodded. “Nice shot.”

Boyd’s chest was heaving, his feet seemed unsteady beneath him, wobbly in an almost cartoonish way that reminded Raylan of the Saturday morning cartoons they’d watch at Helen’s. Raylan always liked _Looney Tunes,_ Boyd had hated Foghorn Leghorn though.

“Boyd, can you drop the gun?” he asked kinder than he probably should.

To Raylan’s surprise, Boyd dropped the firearm. Raylan was just happy it didn’t misfire on impact. 

“Boyd?”

The man’s legs bowed precariously and Raylan raced to grab him. Dropping to his knees, he caught Boyd by a fistful of the front of his jacket, his chest colliding with Raylan’s shoulder and winding him. His other arm snaked under Boyd’s good arm and he shifted his grip on him, laying him gently on the ground. Boyd was pale and his skin was sallow. Sweat beaded across his forehead. 

“Raylan.”

“Boyd.”

“Raylan.”

“ _Boyd._ ”

“Raylan.”

“Are we gonna keep saying each other’s names like idiots or was there something else?”

Boyd reached out, clutching Raylan’s sleeve, and he used the other man’s sure footing to leverage himself to a more upright position.

He choked on a laugh.

“You know, Raylan, I’d bet my life on you being the only friend I have left in this world.” 

With a weary eye on the man, Raylan pulled out his phone. He called Art.

  
  


Boyd was nowhere to be seen by the time the cavalry arrived.

* * *

Raylan didn’t see Boyd for several weeks and that was just fine by him. The more distance between he and Crowder the easier it was to deal with all the questions revolving around the whole thing that he had to answer at the office. If he kept focused on the facts, if he didn’t think about the way Boyd had looked him in the eyes and said: “I am lost, Raylan,” then the easier and quicker he could get back to doing his job.

A week after Brogie Holler Arlo died of a heart attack.

Helen called Raylan but he hung up before she finished telling him the date and time of the wake.

Raylan wondered if Boyd was alright. 

Raylan moved over to the next unit because he wasn’t willing to wait for the blood to get scrubbed out of the carpet. He loosened his tie and poured himself three fingers of Jim Beam. He heard someone fiddle with the lock on his door and methodically slid his sidearm from its holster and waited for the door to crack open.

Raylan stood face to face with Boyd Crowder.

“Do you have some aversion to knocking?” He lowered his gun but he did not holster it.

“Hello, Raylan.”

“What are you doing here, Boyd?”

He looked better than when Raylan saw him last, his lip was still busted, there was a butterfly bandage over the crack across his brow, but he looked healthy besides. The bruises had faded at least.

Boys shut the door, leaning into it. He looked uncertain himself as to how he’d found himself in the room. “Helen tell you about Arlo?”

“You didn’t come all this way to tell me about Arlo.”

“I came to offer my sympathy to a friend after losing his daddy.”

“Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You know how I felt about Arlo.”

“Much the same way I felt about my daddy, I imagine.”

“I imagine you’re right.” It was a little different, but they both knew that. Boyd had been there. He holstered his gun, watching how Boyd’s eyes tracked the movement.

“What are you doing here, Boyd?” he asked again.

“I wanted to see how you were doing, Raylan, I wasn’t lying.”

He stepped further into the room. The table lamp casted him in a hazy orange glow that warmed the tone of his flesh.

He said Raylan’s name a lot, he thought. More than most people. Drew it out in that drawl that was part holler and part just Boyd’s peculiar learned flare. He figured he shouldn’t enjoy it so much.

“I should arrest you for breaking and entering,” Raylan said without any heat.

Boyd was real close now, close enough he could feel his body heat. Raylan didn’t tell him to step away.

“Then why haven’t you?”

“It’s not too late.”

“I would have to agree with that particular sentiment, Raylan. It’s never too late to act on a desire.” His breath was hot as it ghosted across Raylan’s skin. He smelled like menthol and the gasoline fumes from his truck. “You look tired, Raylan, are you not sleeping well?”

“Long day at work.”

“Heard you were in Bennett.”

“Was looking for a sex offender.”

“Well, ain’t that mighty heroic.”

“What are you doing Boyd?” 

They stood too close and when Boyd spoke again it was with their lips brushing. Raylan felt like he was standing on a cliff’s edge; looking over a mine shaft with an abyss opening up beneath him.

“The very thing I’ve thought of doing since your _heroic_ return to Harlan.”

He surged forward, his lips dry against Raylan’s but so unspeakably warm. Hot - like the devil himself was lurching down Raylan’s throat. He had a hand on the back of Raylan’s head, fingers firm in his hair. Like he were holding him in place.

With a desperate, unsolicited moaned Raylan opened his mouth to Boyd, his hand shooting out to grasp at Boyd’s hip. Boyd touched him and it felt like his hands were everywhere. He was like a force of nature when he kissed. Raylan hadn’t kissed Boyd since 1990. He tasted like cheap cigarettes and that mint gum from the dollar store he had favored since high school. Kissing him now wasn’t all that different than it was twenty years ago. He acted with more confidence now, unafraid to take the lead. 

He tried to keep his voice firm when he said Boyd’s name, placing a hand on his chest. All the same, Raylan didn’t fight Boyd as he pushed him back till his legs knocked against the bed and they both went crashing onto the mattress in a tangle of long legs. 

Boyd groaned as the movement jarred his gunshot wound. He moaned Raylan’s name half in want and half from the shock of pain.

“Goddamn it, Boyd.”

“Shouldn’t take the lord’s name in vain, Raylan. It’s a sin.”

“Shut up.”

“Whatever you say.” He kissed him again, his hands tugging at Raylan’s tie until he obliged and pulled until the thing was loose enough to pull over his head. He tossed it aside and Boyd began working on Raylan’s shirt buttons and then his own as Raylan started on his belt. Boyd pressed his thigh between Raylan’s legs and they both gasped. 

“Fuck, Boyd.”

“Mmm.”

His mouth began trailing down Raylan’s neck and chest the moment his undershirt was tossed. Boyd palmed Raylan through his jeans causing him to curse.

_“Shit.”_

“That feel good, Raylan?” he asked, breathily, then commanded, “Get your jeans off.”

Boyd ducked his head to hide a grin as Raylan struggled with his boots, before slipping out of his own jeans. Raylan tugged at Boyd’s t-shirt but he refused to lift his arms.

“Boyd.”

He shook his head. “Raylan, I don’t think you want-”

“It’s okay.”

Raylan had already seen, that first day in the church, he had already seen it. He didn’t understand Boyd’s sudden hesitation. 

Boyd just shook his head. “Leave it,” he said more firmly. Doubt had started to creep in, tainting the confidence that had led him to drive the three hours to Lexington. 

He looked up at Boyd’s dark eyes and found himself nodding. “Alright.” He kissed Boyd then, demanding and wanting, letting him know it was alright. His hand slid under Boyd’s waistband and he asked, “is this okay?”

Boyd thought he could cry. Wordlessly and stone faced, he nodded, because it was that or saying _apparently I never fell out of love with you like I had told myself I had and you can literally do whatever you want._ And that was a sure fire way to scare off the only person you had left in the world who you gave a good goddamn about.

“Whatever you want,” he choked out.

  
  


“Oh _god damnit_.”

Boyd wiped his mouth and threw himself down beside Raylan, causing the mattress to shake. “That’s what every lady wants to hear after she finishes giving a guy head.”

Raylan looked at Boyd, a frown causing a small wrinkle between his brows. Boyd reached out and pressed the pad of his thumb against it as if that would smooth it out. Raylan swatted at his hand and Boyd smiled.

“You’re not a lady.”

“No. I’d’ve hoped you had figured that out somewhere around the time you had your cock inside-

“Jesus, Boyd.”

“Raylan.”

“I am a Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

Boyd propped himself up on his elbow. “Are you going to arrest me for breaking and entering now, Deputy U.S. Marshal Givens?”

With a groan, Raylan sat up. He pushed his hands through his hair in frustration. “Not while you’re naked,” he said. “I don’t wanna have to explain that to Art.”

“Who’s Art?”

“My boss. Who would probably fire me for sleeping with a felon. Might be his breaking point,” he mused, scrubbing a hand across his face.

“You mean the man who hit my hands with a Bible?” Boyd said tersely.

Raylan laughed lightly and his eyes squinted in that way that Boyd knew was meant to convey an apology. “You remember.”

“Are you going to Arlo’s wake?” he asked, laying with his arms folded behind his head.

“Really great pillow talk, Boyd.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were looking for pillow talk, Raylan. My apologies. I’ll endeavor to find a gentler topic of conversation next time.”

Raylan raised his brows. “Next time?”

Boyd tilted his head and blinked at Raylan. He shuffled and rested his hands on his stomach and interlocked his fingers. “Is that what I said?”

“It is.”

“Hmm.”

Raylan slipped off the bed, dressing in clean underwear and a pair of sweatpants. He sat back down on the bed and looked at Boyd. He still wore his grey t-shirt. Raylan’s eyes drifted to where _S-K-i-N-H-E-A-D_ was spelled out across each appendage in thin lettering. He wondered what other stick n’ poke tattoos marred his flesh under that shirt. Boyd shifted just a hair, his equivalent of squirming, and looked as if he wanted to move his hands, hide them behind his back or under the comforter, but that would be admitting defeat and Boyd was not a man to blink first.

Raylan thought it was a real shame, he always liked Boyd’s hands. He had good memories of Boyd’s hands, the way they mapped out Raylan’s body on the bench seat in the cab of Boyd’s squarebody senior year.

“No, I don’t think I’ll go.”

Boyd nodded, inspecting the grime under his nails. His hands angled away from Raylan in a way that almost looked unintentional.

“I’ll stop by and see Helen if that’s what she wants.”

“Johnny’s alive,” Boyd said after a beat.

“Oh yeah?”

He didn’t ask how Boyd was feeling about that, but he knew Johnny was maybe the only other Crowder that Boyd got along with. Was the only other Crowder Raylan had ever gotten on with as well, playing baseball together in high school.

“He’s in a bad way. He’ll be in a chair most likely and he and I aren’t speaking, but he’ll live.” He sat up and swung his legs over the bed, getting dressed. 

Raylan said, “I do have clothes you can sleep in.”

Boyd looked at him with an unreadable expression. Raylan didn’t know anyone else that could keep their face expressionless the way Boyd could.

“You can stay the night, Boyd. It’s late.”

“That’s alright,” he said. “I work the night shift tomorrow, I’ll have plenty of time to sleep before.”

“The night shift where?”

“The mine.”

Raylan felt his jaw hang open like a broken screen door. “You’re workin’ back at the mine?” he asked, disbelieving. “You… why in the hell would you do that?”

“To pay bills, Raylan. Why do you hunt down dangerous fugitives?”

“You don’t have bills, Boyd. You don’t even have a house! You don’t pay your taxes. Where _are_ you living, by the way? ‘Cos last I saw you were sleeping in a tent out in the holler with a bunch of criminals.”

Boyd’s face lost several shades of color and Raylan felt a small twinge of guilt. They should probably look for those bodies but it really wasn’t a marshal’s problem and Lord knew local PD was all in someone’s pocket. Maybe the State Troopers then, he thought. He could make a call.

“Ava has been so generous as to lease me her spare room.”

“Ava let you through her front door?”

“We have come to a certain understanding. She _is_ a Crowder, and without Bowman she could use the extra help.”

“She shot your little brother dead, she’ll probably do the same to you if you give her cause.”

Boyd’s eyes went cold. “I would never lay a hand on Ava. Do you think so little of me, Raylan?”

Raylan felt a little chastised. It was unfair to compare anyone to Bowman Crowder. Raylan hadn’t seen him in twenty years, but he remembered him sharply enough. Any gaps in Raylan’s memories, Ava had sufficiently filled. Still, Raylan knew he couldn’t trust Boyd.

“Besides, you’ve shot me and you let me into your bed,” Boyd said coldly. “So honestly, Raylan, who’s intentions should I be more weary of?”

Raylan took a deep breath. Alright, Boyd had made his point. “So the mines,” he tried on a limb.

Boyd finished buttoning his shirt. “It’s honest work, Raylan.”

“And you’re such an honest man.”

“People change.”

“Not people like you,” he said shortly. He didn’t know why he kept talking. Wished he could just bite his tongue. “Not just like that.”

“Yes, Raylan, _just like that_.” 

Raylan looked at him, seeing the man as he was. He looked raw, torn open, and honest in a way Raylan was not used to. He was angry, but the anger was masking a sadness that was running deep. He was worked up into a whirlwind of emotions that were clashing and getting all mixed up in his head. It wasn’t like him, Boyd was a conman and a strategist.

Oftentimes Raylan allowed himself to forget he was anything more than a cold blooded criminal. Life was easier in black and white; easier to deal with absolutes.

“Okay, Boyd.”

He sat back down on the bed heavily, his elbows on his knees, his back to Raylan. He hung his head and pushed his hands through his hair. He reminded Raylan of the way he looked the night he slipped into Raylan's room the last time, beaten to hell and looking miserable. 

“ _Raylan,_ ” he spoke Raylan’s name like a prayer. Like he was asking for something, like he needed something. He didn’t know what Boyd needed, and he didn’t know if he would want to give it to him even if he did. “Why did you come back to Harlan, Raylan?”

“Because you blew up a church with a rocket launcher and shot Jared Hale in the back of the head.”

Boyd side-eyed him, then he stood and made for his jacket. It fit him too loose and Raylan thought that he might have lost some weight.

“I should go.”

Clearly, Raylan hadn’t said what Boyd was wanting to hear.

“Alright.”

Boyd paused at the door, glancing at Raylan over his shoulder. There was something dark in his eyes that made Raylan feel sick. Made Raylan worried. Then he was gone. 

As the door swung shut Raylan blew out a heavy breath. “Just like that.”

* * *

Seeing Boyd Crowder dressed in cover-alls and enough soot and coal dust to look like he had gone swimming in it blew Raylan back nearly twenty years. Boyd looked near the same as he did at nineteen if Raylan didn’t look too very close. A few more scars and a few wrinkles creased his forehead and he sported a bit less hair although he made up for it with all that extra volume. The smile he gave Raylan was just as big as it had always been. Raylan had never seen him smile quite like that for no one else.

“Step out of the hole to find Raylan Givens waiting for me. For a second I thought I was nineteen again,” he said.

“Yeah? I was just thinking, last time I was down a dog-hole mine was Myrtle Creek, you and me running for our lives.” He trailed Boyd to his locker, moseying along being him with his hands in his jeans pockets. He leaned against the chainlink fence and watched men pass without giving either of them a second glance. “I’ll tell you, I’m not afraid of heights, snakes or red-headed women, but I am afraid of _that._ ” He pointed at the gaping mine portal.

Raylan couldn’t grasp Boyd’s desire to go back down there. Then again, he hadn’t seemed half as afraid as Raylan when they were kids. He seemed to invite it even, thrive in the blackness. Raylan had never told anyone he was scared shitless of those mines, but Boyd always knew. Boyd had witnessed Raylan’s fear and he had soothed it like Raylan were just a spooked horse.

“Yeah, well, not a lot of legal employment opportunity in Harlan County. At least not for a man with my skill set,” Boyd said. He approached Raylan through the fence. “Besides, wasn’t it you that said I like to get money and blow shit up?”

“Buy you a drink?”

Boyd ducked his head like he were considering his options. “When a Deputy United States Marshal offers to buy you a drink in a dry county, a cautious man might turn him down.”

“Well, you could always claim entrapment,” Raylan said, a smile forming. “But I take your point. What if I said,” Rayland started again as the two of them began to walk towards the car lot, “‘Lets drive to a puddle, and I’ll buy you a drink’?”

“Well, I’d say, ‘Cumberland’s the closest’.”

They drove separately. Boyd didn’t know where he stood with Raylan and he didn’t trust the man to not get worked up and leave him ditched in Cumberland without his truck. 

Boyd threw back his first drink, trying to ignore the way Raylan loomed beside him. Hated how much his presence got under his skin. He ordered a second.

“So, just so we’re clear, genie don’t go back in the bottle twice. You go anywhere near Gio, he goes scorched-earth and he’ll come after you.”

“Is that all you wanted?” Boyd asked. “Make sure I wasn’t gonna throw any gasoline on the Cuban fire?”

“Life don’t hand out too many second chances, Boyd. I just hope you take advantage of yours.”

“Gio got nothing to fear from me, my friend, because my outlaw ways are behind me.”

“Just you saying that scares the shit out of me,” he said as his phone began to ring.

“God’s honest truth.” He took a sip of his bourbon.

It had taken some serious soothing over with Gio Reyes after Raylan and Boyd killed both his niece and nephew. Gio had been pissed, ready to rain hell fire on any living Crowder. Boyd better damn well take this stalemate for what it was.

“Hold on,” he said into his cell. “The more you say it, the less I believe it.”

He turned to face Raylan properly, his eyes dark. “Believe it or not, Raylan, all I want is to do my job and to be left alone. I hope that’s not too much to ask.” Raylan held up his index finger and Boyd fought back a glare.

He needed Raylan to believe him. Because Raylan made that sort of sacrifice easy for Boyd.

“Okay. Hold on.” He sounded frustrated as he took his phone call, which, in turn, frustrated Boyd. 

Boyd finished his drink. He had been genuinely pleased to see Raylan when he rolled out of the mine. He hadn’t seen him since the night in his motel room a week ago and he had thought of it often in the meantime. Thought of what they’d said to each other all day and what their bodies did every damn night. But Raylan made it difficult not to be frustrated with him.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t transferred you for all the trouble you’ve drawn,” he said once Raylan ended his call with Art.

Raylan adjusted his hat. “Oh, you think I draw it?”

“Oh, you think you don’t?”

The muscles in Raylan’s jaw tensed and jumped. “I gotta go. We’re gonna continue this conversation another time.”

“Raylan,” he said on a sigh, suddenly taciturn. He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. When he opened them Raylan had rested his elbows on the counter and was looking at Boyd expectantly. Boyd just looked at him for a moment, feeling vulnerable. “The other night-”

 _“Boyd,”_ Raylan stopped him with a harsh whisper and a stern finger. He eyed the bartender to see they weren’t being overheard. “The other night cannot happen again.” Boyd opened his mouth but Raylan barreled on. “I am a Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

“And I’m a coal mine,” he said in a tone that clarified he was electing to ignore Raylan’s point.

Raylan planted his hands on his hips. “I gotta go.”

Boyd ordered another drink. It wasn’t his last one of the night either. 

* * *

With his pick still in the lock Boyd felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as the shadows spit out a looming figure. His fingers ached, bruised and bleeding, and he wanted for the gun he left under the seat in his truck. 

His face revealed by the cheap dome light, he did not look intimidating to Boyd. Maybe a car salesman or a real estate agent. He definitely had the appearance of a man that would try to cheat you out of something.

“Who the hell are you?” the stranger asked. His eyes drifted to the lockpick and back to Boyd. 

Boyd looked at him serenely, his tongue darting out to lick away the blood on his lip before it could slip down his chin. He had hoped it would stop bleeding by now. He knew he looked a frightening sight and this man’s attempt to mask fear with bravado amused Boyd.

“I assume you were expecting someone else.”

The man’s eyes were big and round. He nodded quickly. “Definitely somebody else.”

“If I were a suspicious man I might wonder why you were lurking in the shadows waiting on Deputy Marshal Givens to come home.”

The man stumbled for words. His mouth gaping like a fish on land.

Headlights fell on the both of them and Boyd silently cursed to himself. He had wanted to be inside before Raylan came back. The headlights cut off and he heard Raylan slam his door, followed by the beeping of his car being locked. Boyd rolled his eyes skyward.

“I don’t know which of you I’m less impressed with right now,” Raylan said. 

Boyd gave him a tight lipped smile.

“You look like hell,” he said to Boyd. “Gary. Something I can help you with?”

Gary looked between the two of them.

Raylan sighed and tossed his keys at Boyd who caught them easily. “I’ll speak to you in a minute.”

Boyd pocketed his lockpick and let himself in with the key. He had gone to Ava’s after he left the bar and she had been kinder to him than he rightly deserved. She had extended an olive branch of sorts and left him with what he needed to clean himself up, but his face ached and his head pounded and while the fight had sobered him up he desperately wanted a drink or a smoke. He hadn't smoked this much in years but the recent weeks had been a bitch in a half and he figured he was swapping one vice for another.

He took a seat with a small groan at Raylan’s table. He took a punch to the stomach that made his abs and ribs smart. He closed his eyes and waited for Raylan who came in not more than a couple moments later. 

“Who was that?”

“My ex-wife’s estranged husband.” 

Boyd blew out a breath. He listened to the mattress creek as Raylan sat and pulled his boots and jacket off. “Poor woman. What did he want?

“He thinks I’m sleeping with his wife.”

Boyd laughed sharply, his head thrown back. Opening his eyes, he looked at Raylan with a sharp toothed smile. “Jesus, Raylan. You sleepin’ with your married ex, a childhood friend who’s now a felon whom you shot through the chest. Oh, and don't forget the widow of said felon’s late brother whom she killed. You get around, boy.”

“I ain’t sleeping with Ava no more and I sure as shit am not sleeping with Winona.”

“Why not?”

“Because we divorced for a reason.”

Boyd tilted his head with a look that said he thought Raylan was being purposely obtuse. “I meant Ava.”

Raylan shrugged. “Only brought the both of us trouble.” He liked Ava, liked her a whole hell of a lot, but they weren’t going to work and they both knew so. “What are you doing here, Boyd?”

“I thought you wanted to continue our conversation, Raylan. That is what you said at the puddle.”

“That where you got your ass kicked?” Raylan asked, taking the seat across from him.

“I’ve come to confess, Raylan.” He laid his hands atop the table palms up and facing the heavens. 

“Anything I can throw you back in Sandy for?” 

Boyd huffed a self-deprecating laugh and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He knew he looked psychotic with his hair all a mess but he couldn’t be bothered. He felt like hell and his emotions were running high.

Raylan cursed himself for what he was about to do before he grabbed two glasses and the handle of Jim Beam from the mini fridge and poured them each a generous amount. He unclipped his badge and holster from his belt and held them up for Boyd to see before setting them both on the dresser, the badge facing down. Raylan trusted that Boyd got the message.

“Start talking.”

Boyd took a large drink and was grateful for the way it burned down his throat. 

He confessed to shooting Jared Hale after the church bombing. “I thought he had betrayed me, Raylan.” It didn’t justify anything.

He confessed to blowing that meth trailer in the woods, killing the man inside. “I didn’t know he was in there, Raylan.” It didn’t matter any.

“I am tired…” He ran a hand across his jaw and mouth. “I think you and I both know where this path takes a man. I don’t want to be my daddy, Raylan.” He frowned at the bottom of his glass. Raylan had given him a generous four fingers but it had taken Boyd no time at all to drain it like it was sweet tea.

“What brought this on, Boyd? It’s been a long time.”

“It wasn’t like this. Daddy was locked up and you were in Miami,” he said. 

“I left you.”

“You got out.”

“I should have dragged you with me.”

“I wouldn’t have gone.”

“Then I should have stayed.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“The hell you didn’t.”

“If you had stayed you would have hated me at best,” Boyd said. “At worst you would have turned out like Arlo.”

Raylan flinched. He knew he was right.

Boyd did not need Raylan to take Boyd’s fuck ups and crimes and sins onto himself. This wasn’t some messed up way of trying to absolve himself. He just wanted Raylan to know. He needed someone to know.

“Sometimes I think it’s this town,” he said. “That it’s cursed.”

“Then why stay?”

“It’s my home, Raylan.” He loved Harlan, Raylan knew that. He couldn’t say why for certain, maybe it was as easy as Boyd said, it was home, and that was the beginning and end of it. “Sometimes I think it’s this town and other times I think it was Bo. Most of the time I think it was just me. I used to think I didn’t have a choice, I was doing what I needed to do. There aren’t a lot of options in Harlan County, Raylan. Not for a man like me, not with my family.” 

He was a goddamn Crowder and that meant something in Harlan.

“We always have a choice,” Raylan said, but a part of him understood. He had his own fears, fears of becoming Arlo. He knew if he never left Harlan he would have either died in those mines or become something he would hate and it scared the shit out of him.

“You told me, once, when we were kids, that I can’t ever do things the easy way. Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever made a hard decision in my life, Raylan.” 

Following Bo, getting men to follow him by using their own ideologies to push his own agenda, blowing shit up. All of that was easy. 

“My daddy killed all my men, strung them up in the woods like swine.”

Raylan refilled both of their glasses.

“I walked away to save them but he lied, Raylan. They believed in me and I-“

That was when Boyd had realized who his daddy really was and what he was truly capable of. He scared the hell out of Boyd as a boy, he supposed he never really let go of it.

”The last thing I said to him, about there being more than one way to kill a man, that’s how it feels, Raylan. I don’t feel like myself.” He swallowed the two fingers Raylan had kindly poured him. He sat back in his seat, placing his palms flat on the table. He felt like he was gonna rip out of it otherwise. He felt like they were on a ship on troubled waters, the floor moving beneath him.

“Alright, I believe you,” Raylan said.

Boyd’s shoulders dropped and he practically went slack, slumping in his seat. His head fell back, knocking against the wood back of the chair, and he closed his eyes. He heard Raylan stand and listened to him move about the room. Something light was dropped in his lap and he opened his eyes to see a pair of dark grey sweatpants neatly folded. He looked at Raylan who was now dressed down in a pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt and Boyd realized he must have started to doze off. Boyd also knew Raylan was one to sleep in little more than his boxers, but he got the message: nothing more was happening tonight other than sleep. Boyd nodded and eased himself out of the chair, his back had become stiff and he ached head to toe. 

He was so goddamn tired.

“You’re getting too old to be getting into bar fights,” Raylan said hypocritically.

Boyd chuckled. “I try not to make a habit of it,” he said.

Raylan’s smile was tense. “Good.”

Boyd changed his clothes and accepted the packaged toothbrush Raylan handed him.

Later, he laid in Raylan’s bed, feeling the other man’s warmth from where he lay beside him. They did not touch but Boyd ached to reach out. Boyd laid on his side and watched Raylan. He looked at peace, his eyes closed and his breathing even and slow. Raylan shifted, rolling over to face Boyd, and then he was leaning forward on his elbow; his lips were warm and soft against Boyd’s as he kissed him. It was a short kiss and it left Boyd’s lips tingling.

“Go to sleep Boyd,” he said quietly.

“I don’t understand you,” he admitted.

With eyes shut, Raylan smiled softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been holding onto this idea for awhile, they stood such a chance in season two it haunts me.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

Raylan accepted the cold beer as Boyd handed it to him with a quiet “thanks” and listened as he and Ava attempted small talk. The dining room, where neither Bowman nor Boyd’s blood had ever been washed out entirely, was done up real nice and Ava looked pleased to see the both of them there.

Ava should rent a carpet cleaner, Raylan thought. Maybe he should spring for one for her, seeing as half the mess was his doing.

Raylan had almost expected Ava, with her wicked sense of humor, to serve fried chicken. He was grateful when she pulled a ham out of the oven.

The three of them sat around the dining table and passed food amicably, like they were all just old friends and never anything but. Like this was just something normal that they did. No bad blood or broken hearts. Glazed ham, sweet potato casserole and asparagus. Boyd’s gaze lingered on Raylan until he caught the other man’s eye. His stare made Raylan feel like he was being looked right through to his core.

Boyd laughed at something Ava said, loud and buoyant, bringing Raylan back to himself. He was so full of life, like nothing else Raylan had ever known. Life that Raylan damn near stole away. Boyd was magnetizing and Raylan wondered if it was too late to pull himself out of his field of orbit. 

He watched Ava smile softly back at him. 

The last time Raylan had heard Ava talk about Boyd, it was to call him Bowman’s “creepy” brother. Raylan wondered what instigated this change in their dynamic.

He knew his own opinions on Boyd had seesawed so many god damn times.

There was the thought, in the back of Raylan’s head, that he was having dinner with the last two people he had slept with. It should probably be awkward. It certainly wasn’t normal. Yet, then again, there were very few people in Raylan’s life he could call a friend that he hadn’t wound up in bed with.

That probably said something about him.

“Boyd’s been working at the mines, Raylan, he tell you about that?” Ava asked. She seemed real pleased about it too.

“It might have come up.”

Boyd’s eyes found Raylan over the rim of his beer. He looked at him like he knew what he was going to say and he likely did. “I’ve turned a new leaf.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“Have a _little_ faith in him,” she said in a tone that conveyed she was teasing Boyd. “He does know he’s homeless if he doesn’t keep his nose clean.”

After dinner, Boyd volunteered to clean the dishes and Raylan trailed after him, feeling a little displaced. He didn’t know his role here.

“I’m gonna have a smoke,” Ava said as she headed out to the front porch.

Raylan was stirred out of his thoughts as Boyd offered him a dripping wet serving dish. He accepted it, confused.

“You want to dry it? Or you just plannin’ to watch?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” He grabbed the dish towel that hung over the oven handle. They worked like that in silence for a while, the sound of crickets and june bugs filling the small kitchen. Ava put a Loretta Lynn album on in the living room. 

Raylan didn’t look at Boyd; couldn’t bring himself to. It was no good for a lawman, being blinded by Boyd Crowder’s smile every time he looked his way. He didn’t know what to say to him anyhow. He didn’t know why he accepted Ava’s invitation.

When the last dish was dried, Boyd rested his hip against the counter and gave Raylan his full attention. “Is there something you want to say to me, Raylan?”

“Uh, When did you move in with Ava?”

“Two weeks ago Thursday.”

Raylan nodded. “I’m glad you’re getting on alright.”

“We didn’t, but I already told you, we’re still family. She has mighty strict house rules, I’ll have you know.” Boyd tamped down a smile that threatened to take over him every time he looked at Raylan and wet his lips, his fingers tapping against the porcelain rim of the sink. “Can I tell you something, Raylan?” he asked, looking at Raylan expectantly. 

“Go on.”

“I’ve missed you a great deal,” he said in a rush, his gaze turning to the window, looking far beyond the property line. “I don’t reckon I realized how much until you came home. Was like…”

“Like no time had passed?”

He shook his head. “No. No, like I had seen you just the day before, but also like a hundred years had passed since I’d laid eyes on you and thensome.” He had been so beautiful; like a holy thing sent to liberate Boyd from the devils that had consumed him.

Maybe Raylan had been what Boyd had been praying to this whole time.

“You’ve got a bit less hair.” Raylan reached up to run a hand through Boyd’s hair, making it stand up real tall. He had always been a fan of Boyd’s untamable hair. It was real thick when they were kids and always a riot of a mess. “And your teeth are straighter. That’s how I knew how much time had gone by.”

He did nothing to hide a wide smile that overtook his face, forming the beginnings of crow's feet around his eyes. “Well, the teeth are new. What I am attempting to impart upon you, Raylan, is the magnitude of my feelings towards you.” He spoke carefully, his hand now gripping the sink like a vice while the other made small mindless gestures through the air. “And if such a confession necessitates any form of relationship between the two of us, well, I would be very grateful for such an outcome.”

“A relationship beyond the one where you slip into my motel room unannounced and uninvited to either take advantage of me or confess your sins,” Raylan said.

Boyd met Raylan’s eyes. “If you would truly like for me to stop granting myself entry without your permission, I can be agreeable to that, Raylan. Yes.”

“What are you saying, Boyd?”

He wet his lips, and his dark eyed stare that Raylan thought he could get drunk on lingered on Raylan’s hand where it rested just inches from Boyd’s own. “I have been struggling, internally, with myself lately, Raylan. I’ve not been myself for some time but when I am around you I feel as though I know myself better than I have in years.

“I know you make me want to do better. Ain’t that somethin’?”

“Boyd-”

“Raylan, you don’t have to say anything,” Boyd told him. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean.”

Raylan stepped closer to him and Boyd thought he was going to kiss him. He took Boyd around the middle, hands on the small of his back, and rested his head on Boyd’s shoulder, his nose pressed against the other man’s throat. Boyd exhaled softly in surprise, but he was pleased, his arms snaking up around Raylan’s back to hold him even closer. 

_Oh,_ Boyd thought. He ran a hand through Raylan’s hair, playing with the soft strands. He hadn’t cut it in awhile and it was starting to curl around his ears.

“Summer before I left I wanted to tell you how I felt about you,” he said. “I couldn’t get the words out. Thought if I did I’d never leave. Scared the hell out of me.”

And didn’t that just break Boyd’s damn heart. Boyd had understood why Raylan left and he had hated him for it because that was the easiest option. He knew Raylan had to go. Boyd swallowed thickly, his heart racing like hummingbirds against his ribcage. 

“I don’t think I knew, really, what it was. I was just a kid, I didn’t-”

“You don’t have to explain, Raylan.”

They stayed that way for a while, until the sound of a throat clearing had the both of them pulling apart, startled. Though Raylan’s hand remained firmly around Boyd’s arm, just above his elbow. 

“Sorry,” Ava apologized with a timorous smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt but you two _are_ in my kitchen and I can only pretend to be smoking for so long.” She gestured with the pack and lighter in her hand, setting the items down on the counter.

Boyd’s face had gone a surprising shade of red.

“You two alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Raylan said, his voice sounding raw. He glanced at Boyd who’s gaze was fixed on his shoes, his thumb pressed against his bottom lip. “Yes.”

Ava nodded. “Alright. Well good. There’s pie in the fridge, if either of you have the room left for it.”

Raylan nodded. “That sounds good.”

”It’s pecan.”

“Great,” Raylan said.

“I’ll get plates if you wanna grab it,” she said. She gave the two of them an assessing look for a minute. “I ain’t gonna be weird about whatever this is goin on between ya, you know,” she forced a laugh but she seemed sincere.

Raylan felt a swell of love towards Ava blossom in his chest. He hadn’t really been worried about that but hearing her say it was a nice surprise.

“Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on,” Boyd said. He crossed his arms over his chest and Raylan had never seen the man try and make himself so small. He was really worried about Ava’s opinion.

“Of course there isn’t.” She sounded offended.

Raylan surprised himself when he laughed softly. He startled Boyd, the man looking at Raylan through his dark lashes, as he took his hand in his. He quickly relaxed and gave Raylan’s hand a gentle squeeze.

* * *

Helen gave Raylan the house after they put Arlo in the ground; buried him in the plot of land out front that had been waiting for him for as long as Raylan could remember. Raylan didn’t want the damn house, had never liked the place, not really, and especially not after his momma passed. 

Then he thought of Boyd. 

“You could stay in the house, you know, if you wanted.”

Boyd looked at him like he wasn't sure he heard Raylan right. They were at a bar in Richmond and Boyd wore a blue button up that Raylan thought gave him an unfair advantage. A band was playing something neither of them recognized but it had a banjo _and_ a mandoline so Boyd declared it a good time.

“You wouldn’t have to pay rent or nothing, just- the house is paid off anyway. Just pay your taxes-”

“I haven’t paid taxes in over ten years, Raylan.”

Raylan fought a grin but it was a quickly losing battle. Boyd had, in fact, promised to pay his taxes now that he had an honest job as he had proudly told Raylan as much. “Pay your taxes and keep your outlaw ways out of the house and it’s all yours to stay in.”

“Yessir, Marshal Dillon.” Boyd smirked and took a sip of his drink. “What about you?”

“I’m in Lexington a lot,” he said. He cleared his throat. “ _But_ , when I don’t need to be, I suppose I can stay in the house.”

Boyd set his drink down, the glass sweating into the wood grain of the bartop. “Is this your emotionally detached way of asking me to move in with you?”

Raylan rolled his eyes and took a drink. “Emotionally detached seems harsh.”

“If it’ll make you shut up about it, I’ll move in with you, boy. Christ.” He smiled into his glass like the cat that got the damn canary and shook his head. 

Raylan laughed and ordered them another round of drinks. "Asshole."

  
  
  


Raylan started cleaning the house out with Helen’s help on a Sunday afternoon. Most things she didn’t want to keep Raylan just threw in the trash or the burn pile out front. There wasn’t anything of Arlo’s he wanted to hang onto. Raylan didn’t give a shit. The furniture stayed and Helen left a lot of the kitchenware that Raylan didn’t know what the hell to do with.

Boyd moved in on Monday, carrying the few things he had with him from Ava’s. His belongings consisted of a duffle bag of clothes, a box of books, and a smaller box of vinyl records and CDs.

The house felt empty. Neither of them owned much. Boyd offered to paint the living room and Raylan couldn’t recall it ever being a different color than what it was now.

“Sure. Do whatever the hell you want to the place,” Raylan had said. 

Raylan had expected being back in the house would feel weird, and it did feel weird, but he had braced for much worse. Maybe it was because they had cleared out Arlo’s things, maybe it was because Boyd was there. Maybe it was because Raylan had never much felt one way or another about the place to begin with.

He had meant what he told Boyd and Boyd took him up on it. 

He painted the walls and he would bring things home sometimes from general stores or scrap yards or consignment stores, small decorative things that neither of them had indulged in before. Raylan’s mama didn’t have much of an eye for decor and Boyd’s home growing up was a mess. Helen’s place had been more Raylan’s home than anywhere. The Chevy square body with a broken gas gauge he bought sophomore year off a friend of Johnny’s was the best home Boyd had ever had. They spent a lot of time together in both of those places.

A week after Boyd moved in Helen came by and insisted on cooking Raylan dinner. Pleased that he was hanging around Harlan at all.

Helen set the cast iron pot down on the counter and started judging him for his poorly stocked fridge and pantry. “What do you even eat other than peanut butter sandwiches?”

Raylan popped a potato chip in his mouth and leaned his hip against the counter. “Take out?” He shrugged. “I ain’t here a whole lot, Aunt Helen. I still work in Lexington. I’m just keepin’ squatters out.”

“I hear Boyd’s staying here,” she said, her hands settled on her hips. She didn’t look unhappy, just slightly vexed for his not having told her he imagined.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From Boyd, you idiot. Who else?”

“You hanging out with Boyd?”

“He and Miss Ava came by for dinner, because unlike you he’s actually sociable,” she said. “They had gone shopping for paint.” She gestured at the living room that had finished drying just yesterday. The furniture was still pulled away from the walls. Raylan should probably move it back, Boyd had a bad habit of not finishing projects.

Raylan shrugged. “I’ve been busy, Helen.”

“Hm.” She turned her back on him and went about digging through the pantry cupboard. There was a lot of boxed rice and macaroni and non-perishables. Raylan figured it wouldn’t kill him to go to the grocery store. “No reason to get all prickly, boy.”

She didn’t ask after his business with Boyd any further than that.

* * *

Art, quite fairly, thought the stolen Oxy bus that was hit on it’s way to a Harlan pill mill was Boyd’s handywork. Hell, Doyle Bennett thought it was Boyd too. He didn’t have it in him to say it probably couldn’t have been Boyd because he was with Boyd all day and last night at a dive between Harlan and Lexington and then in their bed. 

Art also accused Raylan of sleeping with his ex-wife. He didn’t tell him he wasn’t sleeping with Winona because it was easier than clarifying that he was sleeping with Boyd Crowder. So, yes, Raylan was willing to allow Art to think he had fallen back into bed with his ex-wife, rather than fallen back into bed with his childhood friend who was a known felon.

It was kind of wonderful, how quickly and horribly Raylan could complicate his entire life. It was going on two months since Brogie Holler and Raylan was still amazed. 

He still wondered if Tim saw them that night in that bar fifty miles east of Lexington. They needed to choose more obscure places if they were gonna start making a habit of things. Raylan supposed he was out of practice, not used to having to sneak around since high school. They had been good at it then. 

“I do believe you work with that gentleman, Raylan,” Boyd had said, his eyes moving behind Raylan who was not the most subtle rubbernecker. 

“Shit.”

Boyd smiled into his glass. He couldn’t really care if some marshals saw him and Raylan together but he supposed Raylan had justifiable enough cause for them to not be seen in such a _compromising_ situation. “A deputy U.S. Marshal out with Boyd Crowder on his night off,” Boyd drawled. “Might draw the wrong conclusions.”

Raylan pursed his lips. “The wrong conclusions being the right ones.” He leaned closer to Boyd at the cost of nearly folding himself over the table if he tensed up any further. “You think he saw us?”

In a tone that was a little more sincere than Raylan would have liked to hear, he said, “Let’s invite him over.”

“Are you insane?”

“Perhaps I am, Raylan. If he did see us?”

“I’d rather not think about it.”

“You didn’t wear your hat so I’d say there’s a good chance he hasn’t recognized you yet. I almost didn’t,” he teased. He pulled out his wallet while he watched Raylan pull his denim jacket on. 

Raylan was late to work in the morning despite having stayed in Lexington. He blamed Boyd because there was no way Raylan was getting to work on time when he was woken up the way he was, with Boyd’s hands snaking down his body and his bare skin pressed against Raylan’s, Boyd’s mouth on him. There was really no way.

  
  
  


Boyd left an unfinished drink at the booth when he stormed out of Audry’s mid afternoon. He was fuming over Dewey’s little scheme that little piece of shit was so proud of. Letting a bunch of gun thugs and junkies think that it was Raylan that had robbed them blind and shot them up was dangerous and damn foolish. Boyd had fought the urge to blow him away himself. 

“Raylan?” he said when the other man finally picked up his phone.

“What’s going on?” Raylan sounded surprised to hear from him. Boyd heard road noise in the background.

“I was wondering if back when we were digging coal together that you had an inkling of the man that I might someday become?”

“The hell are you talking about?” Boyd could hear the amusement in his tone.

“Well, I never thought I would make a phone call like this, Raylan.” He leaned against the door of his pick up and worked the muscles in his jaw. He fiddled with his keys.

“Well, if it’s about Dewey, don’t worry about it. I already know.”

Boyd swallowed. “He’s at Audry’s,” he said before he could psych himself out of it. “Handing out OxyContin like he’s a pharmaceutical rep.”

“That so?”

“Mmhm.”

“Alright. I’ll be right there. You should go, I don’t want you there if local PD get involved. Could look bad.”

“Alright.”

“And Boyd?” Raylan said, stopping Boyd before he could hang up. “You did good. Thank you.”

“You can express to me your gratitude in every fine detail when you get home.” 

It was late by the time things were finished up with at the office and later still when Raylan came home and found Boyd asleep on the couch. Raylan tossed his hat and his keys on the kitchen table and slipped off his boots and set them by the door. MASH reruns were playing with the volume down real low.

Boyd’s cover-alls were in a rumpled mess on the floor of the laundry room and his hair was still damp when Raylan ran his hands through it to rouse him.

“Mmh Raylan.” Boyd stretched out like a cat, his legs too long for the sofa.

“Hey.”

“You get Dewey?”

“Yeah.”

Boyd smiled lazily, his grin almost cheshire, and Raylan leaned down to kiss him.

“Why don’t you come upstairs?”

“Alright.” 

They made it up the stairs before Raylan took Boyd’s face in his hands and kissed him long and sweet. Boyd’s back was up against the door frame of their room and he nudged his knee between Raylan’s legs. Raylan wondered when he started thinking about it as _their_ room rather than just a room. This was _their_ house now, not _Arlo’s._

“Is this that gratitude you promised me, Raylan?”

“I’m real proud of you.”

Boyd kissed him, his hand bunching in the fabric around Raylan’s middle and holding him close. Raylan thought he just liked to wrinkle his shirts. “That so?”

“Mmhmm.”

Boyd unbuckled Raylan’s belt with one hand, the other tangled up in Raylan’s hair. 

Raylan really was proud of Boyd, not because he had asked the man to go straight, but because Boyd had wanted to. He had never asked Boyd anything other than to keep illegal shit out of his damn house. Boyd always was a man of his word, but Raylan wasn’t stupid and he had been a marshal too long to be naive. He knew what Boyd was, he knew men didn’t just change after so much time. He didn’t ask what he was doing at Audry’s either, Boyd had never been much into whores so he wasn’t concerned.

Raylan’s hand snaked down the back of Boyd’s pants and grabbed a handful of his ass. It earned him a moan from the boy under him.

Boyd kissed him along his neck and jaw. “Do I get a reward, Marshal Givens?” he purred.

“I think something can be arranged,” Raylan said, guiding the both of them towards the bed.

* * *

Raylan was almost relieved when Tom Bergen, on behalf of the State Troopers, asked him to come down to Harlan to help with figuring out McCready’s check forgery situation.

“Ordinarily, I would ask you to keep him,” Art said, “but considering the epic backlog of work he has. Since when are you so gung-ho to spend so much time in Harlan, anyway? A couple months ago you would have rather been anywhere else, now it’s a fight to get you in the office. And please do not tell me it has to do with this grudge.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this shit you’ve been up to involving the Bennetts,” Art said. “It is beyond your purview, Raylan. You have real cases.”

“This has nothing to do with a family feud, Art. What happened between me and Dickie was almost twenty years ago.”

“You were late this morning,” Art said.

“I’m not following you, am I in trouble?”

“Should you be?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You’ve been late a couple times recently.”

“Okay?”

“Why have you been late, Raylan?”

Raylan rolled his eyes, catching onto the point he was driving at. “I have the house now, so sometimes I stay in it. You send me down there for shit all the time and sometimes I don’t wanna make the drive up and get back in Lexington at 2 a.m., I enjoy sleep.”

“You see,” he said triumphantly. “Spending so much of your damn time in Harlan, you can’t even be bothered to make the drive back to Lexington. I need you on things other than Harlan, Raylan.”

Raylan convinced him to let him get away to Harlan County anyway.

Raylan drove down to Harlan with the intention of asking after Walter McCready’s checks. He pulled up to the house in the early afternoon to find Boyd having just gotten up and around.

“Baby, you’re gonna need a promotion to afford all that gas money you're burning through,” Boyd snarked drowsily from the kitchen table. “What’re you doin’ back in this holler so soon?” Raylan pulled Boyd to his feet and kissed him firmly, his hand resting at Boyd’s hip. Boyd was groggy, something typical for him these days with the regularity of night shifts he was pushing through. He tasted like coffee and toothpaste and Raylan kissed him again. “Well, good morning, Raylan.”

“It’s past noon, Boyd.” He kissed him again, drawing a pleased hum out of him. “Tom asked for my help on some Harlan business. Had to tell Art I had a source who might know where to start looking, would only talk to a local though, of course.”

“Of course. You makin’ me your C.I., Deputy Marshal Givens?”

Raylan laughed and kissed him a third time. “I was coming to ask you about your brother Bowman.”

He gently shoved Raylan. “I’d prefer my brother’s name not be subsequent to your kissing me, Raylan. Puts a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Got it.” He nodded sagely. “You know anything about him trading in stolen papers back when? Draw checks and such?”  


Boyd wrapped both palms around his coffee. “There’s little by way of illicit activities in this county that my brother did not have his hands on in one way or another.” 

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“What’s going on?”

“Someone’s cashing Walter McCready’s state benefit checks,” Raylan told him. “With very poorly forged signatures, I might add.”

“Shit.”

“Call it a hunch, but…” 

“That man is either at the bottom of a mine shaft or slurry ate him up,” Boyd said, then: “Bowman didn’t handle papers directly. Handed them off to this Jesus freak, runs that Christian ATV place up in Grant’s Holler. You know it?”

“You mean Winston Baines? Take an ATV tour and get, like, a sermon on the mount?”

“Steward of the Earth, just like Genesis. Little twitchy. I don’t even know if he’s still in the game.” Boyd shrugged. “Then again, this is Harlan, everyone’s in the game.”

“Except Boyd Crowder.”

Boyd rolled his eyes and made a face. “Except every Crowder. Less Ava decides to make a career change.”

Raylan laughed. “Shouldn’t joke about that.”

“She’d probably do a hell of a job of it. I work tonight,” he said. “Should I expect you here when I’m off?”

Raylan sighed. “I don’t know. Hopefully I can wrap this up quick, I’ll call you.”

“Be careful with Baines, Raylan,” he said.

“You know me,” he called as the screen door swung shut behind him with a racket. 

Kicking up dust, a Chevy pick up truck with a rusted out rocker panel and no tailgate pulled into the drive. Raylan aborted his exit and shut his car door. He watched them park, his hands planted on his hips in that way that made his service weapon and his badge impossible to overlook. Boyd called it his “cowboy stance,” said it reminded him of a spaghetti western hero about to show down at high noon.

“Can I help you boys?” he hollered.

“Just lookin’ for Boyd,” the young man that climbed out of the driver’s seat said. There were four of them in total and Raylan took count of each of them; saw the way the man eyed Raylan’s badge with a hard stare.

“You’re friends of his?” he asked.

“From the mine,” the man said with a nod. He then introduced himself as Kyle and offered Raylan his hand.

“Well, I’m glad to see Boyd’s making acquaintances,” he said.

“Boyd never mentioned being friends with any feds,” one of the men, large and blonde, groused. He gave Raylan a look that said he’d rather see Raylan dead due to the star on his belt than anything else. 

“He’s not much of a sharer,” he said with a careless shrug. “So what are y’all doing _here?”_

“What do you care?” Angry Blonde asked.

“Well, it is my house you see.”

“Just picking him up for his shift,” Kyle said.

Raylan nodded. He knew Boyd didn’t start his shift till six. He wasn’t buying a thing that came out of these shithead’s mouths.

“Kyle,” Boyd drawled, voice like silk, as he slunk down the porch. He was dressed now, looked seamless and every bit the outlaw Boyd Crowder. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable on the porch? I’m gonna have a final word with Deputy Marshal Givens.”

Kyle gestured for his boys to follow him and the four of them headed inside. “Make it quick, Boyd.”

Boyd guided Raylan back towards his town car and out of earshot. 

Raylan took a steadying breath and tried to refrain from getting too pissed, his head already drawing conclusions that he wanted desperately to be wrong. “You think I can’t spot a criminal a mile away? All your buddies are packing. I asked one goddamn thing of you, Boyd.”

Boyd feigned confusion and then shock, like he really thought Raylan couldn’t tell when he was fucking lying. “Raylan, I promise you I have no idea what-”

Raylan’s face was hidden under the brim of his head. “ _Boyd_. _”_

Boyd pursed his lips and Raylan saw the moment, in his dark eyes, he decided to drop the bullshit. “I’m handling it, Raylan,” he said firmly. “They want something from me, I figure there ain’t no harm in finding out what.”

Raylan’s eyes drifted from Boyd’s face to the porch where Kyle and his boys had all gone to wait inside. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”

  
  
  


Raylan saw the explosion across the holler from the road on his way home. He tried Boyd but he got no answer. “God _damnit_.” He smacked his palm against the steering wheel. He really wished he had a siren, he thought as he plowed down the mountain roads well over a safe speed. 

“The hell are you mixed up in, Boyd?” he wondered aloud, his heart thudding in his ears.

He called Tom. “You hear what happened?” he asked.

“Attempted robbery at Plackett Mine,” he said. “I’m headed up there now. Four miners came into the office with a couple guns and explosives. A truck blew, the trailer too maybe, I don’t know for sure.”

Raylan cursed. “Anyone dead?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t heard yet.”

Raylan couldn’t later recall what he had said to Tom before he snapped his phone shut and tossed it on his passenger seat. His back ached from the amount of tension he was carrying. 

Raylan didn’t see Boyd when he pulled up to the mine. He cut the engine and scanned the scene, the blue and red flashing lights were casing it all in an eerie glow that made the world feel like it was moving in slow motion. Raylan’s gut clenched painfully tight. He saw Shelby, who he recognized only vaguely, arguing with an officer. His gaze got caught on the remains of a pickup truck that was left charred and blackened, a few yards away sat the half of a trailer, blown wide open. The coroners were toting off several body bags and Raylan felt sick, felt like his legs were about to give out.

A hand on his arm startled Raylan. “Raylan,” Tom said.

“Uh- have you seen Boyd?” he asked, his eyes still searching. His voice sounded shaky to his own ears.

Tom seemed confused and asked, “Boyd Crowder? How’d you know he’d be involved? Harlan PD have him, though Shelby’s claiming he’s innocent.” He pointed towards a police cruiser. “Over there.”

His gaze found Boyd’s, sitting in the back of Sheriff Kelly Davis’s car, and the relief practically poured out of him. Their eyes met through the glass. His face was streaked with blood and coal dust, deep red crusting where it streaked from his hairline to the underside of his jaw, disappearing in the collar of his cover-alls.

“Sheriff Davis!” Raylan called, his feet carrying deftly. 

“Marshal,” she said curtly, stepping away from the officer she had been conversing with.

“Is Boyd Crowder under arrest?”

“What does it look like?”

“What charges?”

She looked at Raylan like he had grown a second head. Or like she thought he was just plain stupid. 

“What I mean is, what reasoning is there to suspect his involvement?”

“Are you kidding?” she asked rhetorically. “Marshal. A truck explodes during a robbery with Boyd Crowder on scene and I’m to assume he was just passing by? We’re taking him in tonight for questioning.”

“Boyd saved my life,” Shelby interjected, sounding like it wasn’t the first time he had said as much. He looked bruised and he had a cut on his forehead but he looked alright besides. 

“What?” Raylan asked.

“Those boys came into the office fixing to rob the safe and kill me in the explosion,” he said. “Boyd gave me the heads up, said he had a feeling something was off with them.”

Raylan was frowning, his head ballooning with questions. 

“And you don’t find that suspicious?” Sheriff Davis demanded. 

“A witness, and victim, says Crowder saved his life and actively worked _against_ the men who blew this place to hell,” Raylan argued. “In my book, that makes Crowder a key witness, if not another intended victim, _not_ a suspect.”

“Kid’s a damn hero,” Shelby said.

Raylan pressed his lips into a thin line. He knew Davis hated him for what had happened with Hunter Mosley but he really didn’t have time to get into all that. “ATF will want to interview Boyd and seeing as every move Crowder makes,” he pointed to where his boy was sitting in the back of the police car, “whether its blowing his damn nose or robbing a fucking bank, falls under marshal purview, I’ll be taking him into Lexington myself. Get him out right goddamn now.”

He knew he was raising his voice, knew he was getting hot in the face. He didn’t give a goddamn.

Davis leveled Raylan with a glare that could kill, but Raylan knew she would cave. “Fine, fuck it! He’s your responsibility, Givens.” She unlocked her car and made a ‘knock yourself out’ gesture.

Raylan opened the door and grabbed Boyd gently by the arm and guided him out of the car. “Someone get these cuffs off him.” He pointed at the nearest officer. “You! Keys.” The officer looked started and scrambled for his keys, handing them to Raylan. He tossed the cuffs and keys on the backseat of the cruiser and took Boyd’s face in his hands. “Are you okay? Has an EMT looked at you-”

Boyd pressed his lips so firmly against Raylan’s it damn near toppled him over. He melted into Raylan, his body going lax with relief. Raylan kissed him hard, holding onto him tight.

Remembering where they were, Raylan pulled away. Boyd’s spit on his lip. Several officers were gawking at them with varying degrees of shock and disgust, a few of them glared, others just looked shocked. Over Boyd’s head, Raylan saw Tom Bergen watching with an expression that Raylan couldn’t make heads nor tails of. 

“Raylan,” Boyd took Raylan by his wrists. “Raylan. I just want to get out of here.”

Raylan swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Have the EMT’s looked at you?”

“Does it matter, Raylan? I- can we just get out of here, please?” Boyd felt dead on his feet and just _so_ tired and he knew he sounded it too. It made Raylan’s heart ache. It wasn’t like Boyd to let his guard down like this.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, yeah. Let's go home.” With a hand on Boyd’s lower back, he guided them towards the car lot. Damn who saw them. Raylan didn’t give a good goddamn anymore.

  
  
  


There was peroxide on the floor from when Raylan’s hands started to shake too bad to keep a strong grip. He set it down on the counter and dropped the bloody washcloth in the sink. He bent his knees and carefully placed a bandage over the cut across Boyd’s forehead. He had a probable concussion, but Raylan had cleaned the blood away from the gash at the least. The blood had mingled with the coal dust, creating a thick blackish-red sludge that made Boyd look like some macabre and wretched thing. Raylan had hated it.

“Good news is I don’t think you need stitches.”

“Don’t have insurance anyway,” he mumbled. Boyd was sitting on the toilet lid, his elbows resting on his knees and his head hung low like it was too heavy for him to stand any longer. Raylan had stripped him of his flannel and undershirt in order to check him for scrapes or cuts. There was a scratch across his chest but nothing dramatic. 

“Well, how’d you treat that GSW from that shit in Brogie Holler?”

Boyd shrugged. “I took care of it.”

He looked into Boyd’s dark eyes. He felt a swell of guilt that he had to swallow down because he knew that he couldn’t have done anything differently that day. Boyd didn’t blame Raylan for none of that anyway. 

“I’m alright, Raylan.” Boyd was just hanging onto consciousness and unless he focused on Raylan with all his might, his fingers gripping the toilet lid to keep from swaying off of it, the room would begin to swim. He didn’t know if it was the concussion or the strong painkillers Raylan had given him, leftover from the last time Raylan had gotten his own ass kicked. “Baby, really, I’m gonna live.” He grabbed Raylan’s hand and set the package of large bandaids aside. 

After releasing a world weary sigh, Raylan rested his head in Boyd’s lap. “I was afraid you were dead,” he muttered. “I saw the blast from the holler. I called Tom- he said…” His hand where it rested in Boyd’s thigh suddenly gripped him hard.

“Shit. Raylan, baby.” Boyd ran his hands through Raylan’s hair, combing his fingers across his scalp. Raylan could stay right there forever. “I’m alright. Okay? I’m okay.” He kissed Raylan on the forehead. “I love you and I’m alive. So would you please take me to bed?”

Boyd’s ‘I love you’ rang like church bells in Raylan’s ears. They didn’t say things like that. Not because it wasn’t true or they didn’t feel that way, but because it just wasn’t what they did.

Raylan kissed him long and deep, like a drowning man. He had a hand on Boyd’s knee and another on his bare shoulder. His thumb traced across the thick ink of the tattoo there, like he could wipe it away. He did it in such a way that Boyd knew he wasn’t aware he was even doing it.

Raylan didn’t ask about the mine, didn’t ask if Boyd knew anything. If he was party to anything. Boyd was grateful for that but he knew Raylan wanted to ask. 

* * *

The two of them arrived in Lexington early the next morning. Raylan didn’t sleep well last night and Boyd woke from a painkiller induced sleep with a thunderous headache. 

They only spoke to bicker over Raylan’s choice to play a John Denver cassette. “Why’s this car got a cassette player anyhow? Ain’t this like an ‘06? Lincoln never hear of CDs? Thought this was supposed to be a luxury brand.” 

Raylan ignored his aimless complaints. “I couldn’t say, Boyd.”

He grumbled under his breath, slumping in his seat, and glared out the window the rest of the drive. “Shoulda taken my truck.”

Raylan was worried about him, Boyd knew, harbored his own suspicions about Boyd’s involvement, but he kept any of that to himself. Boyd was grateful for it.

Boyd saw the woman he knew as Rachel first when they walked into the marshal’s office together. She looked at them both with eyes narrowed in suspicion. The two ATF agents were in the conference room and Boyd was surprised to see Chief Deputy Art Mullen having what was very clearly an argument with them.

Raylan paused at his desk, setting his hat down. Boyd watched the way Raylan’s spine straightened as Art left the conference room and leveled Raylan with a sharp glare. It was a little amusing, would’ve been more so if Boyd wasn’t as uncomfortable as he was in the middle of the federal office.

“They’re ready for Mr. Crowder when he’s ready,” he said to the two of them.

Raylan released a deep sigh. “Alright.” He looked at Boyd, imploring him with his eyes to have had nothing to do with it; to not go to prison today. “Just, tell the truth and you’ve got nothing to worry about.” He smacked him goodnaturedly on the arm with a winning smile plastered, fragile, to his face.

Boyd rolled his eyes. He wanted to say something to Raylan, tell him he would be okay or some other such bullshit just to sooth his nerves. He was more nervous than Boyd was. Boyd was just annoyed and his fucking head was killing him. Boyd held his tongue and, with the most ornery expression he could muster, spared Raylan one last glance. 

The ATF agents introduced themselves and began their recording but Boyd didn’t pay them much attention. Boyd was surprised when Raylan stepped into the conference room along with Art. He watched the pair with sharp, narrowed eyes. Art stood by the end of the table but Raylan remained close to the door, his arms folded over his chest. 

They asked several questions about his employment with Black Pike, about his leaving and coming back after so many years. They spoke as though they didn’t know exactly why he had taken nearly a fifteen year gap from mining, as if he didn’t have a file somewhere in all the bureaucracy that listed everything he had been up to in the time in between. From the Army to the prison system. He was certain there was a thick file somewhere in or around Raylan’s desk. 

“When did you first become acquainted with Kyle Easterly?”

“Have we established whether I knew him at all?” Boyd countered just for the sake of irritation. “We worked the same shifts most days.”

“Several employees said they had seen you conversing with Mr. Easterly after hours.”

Boyd rolled his eyes but relented if just for the sake of getting this over with. “Kyle approached me my first week after our shift to introduce himself,” he said with no small amount of annoyance. “He wanted to get drinks. I told him no. Look, Agent, Kyle and his little crew attempted to rob the trailer last night and they were fixing to blow the mine with me and Shelby inside it. Now, that is not my definition of friendly.”

“And why would Kyle want to kill _you_?”

Boyd’s eyes slid over to Raylan very briefly. “Kyle approached me a week ago at a bar in Cumberland. He was runnin’ his mouth about how he’s killed people, about how he and I are so _similar._ My alleged criminal history precedes me, it seems. Now, I would imagine in retrospect he was attemptin’ to appeal to certain beliefs I may have once held. I believe he was lookin’ for a powderman. A lot can go wrong with Emulex and I have an _alleged_ reputation for blowing shit up.” Boyd made small, refined gestures with his hands on the table as he spoke and he saw the agent’s eyes track the movement, catching on the thin letters on each appendage. “We had an altercation. Kyle knew I worked that shift and I imagine, after turning down his generous invite, he viewed me as an obstacle.”

“Witnesses at that bar said you nearly killed him.”

“Well now, that’s my mistake. If I _had_ killed Kyle then he wouldn’t have nearly killed Shelby.” He wet his lips. “My temper got the best of me is all.”

“Kyle never mentioned his plans to you?”

“We didn’t quite get that far. He got a little caught up in wanting to discuss how many jews I’ve killed. I told him I don’t believe I’ve ever met a jew in my life.”

“Mr. Crowder, you realize we could charge you with felony murder?”

“A felony murder charge would require me to have knowledge that a crime was going to be committed prior of,” Boyd drawled. “Like I said, I had no knowledge. Kyle and I didn’t converse long. He very rudely questioned me about my _alleged_ criminal activities to which I refuted him. I have put that life behind me.” He leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “If you would like to detain me on assault charges, well, I do believe there is no one alive to press those charges, is there?”

Raylan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Boyd failed to hold back his satisfaction.

ATF didn’t have enough to convince the marshal’s to detain him or leverage any charges. When they were finished Boyd stood and chanced a look at Raylan. He wasn’t sure where to be, they had rode to Lexington together in Raylan’s town car, but he didn’t want to be in the room with the ATF agents any longer so he stepped out. 

Several marshal’s shot him conspicuous looks as he strode to Raylan’s desk like he belonged there and took a seat in the chair left in front of it. Deputies Gutterson and Brooks shared a look over Boyd’s head. He dug in his pocket and dumped two painkillers into his palm from a little white bottle. They were leftover from some past injury of Raylan’s. He snatched a water bottle off Raylan’s desk and swallowed the pills.

He sat, his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket and legs stretched in front of him carelessly. Raylan was discussing something with Art that caused the older man’s face to pinch up in a deep frown. Raylan had his hands planted low on his hips and was very outwardly frustrated. 

“Didn’t hurt yourself in there?” Tim Gutterson baited. “Working that silver tongue of yours in overdrive?”

Boyd smiled and wet his lips. “Being a wordsmith is not a crime, Deputy Gutterson, and I only spoke the truth as I know it.”

“That’s right, you’re a man of God now,” Rachel Brooks said. “You couldn’t tell a _lie_ in good faith.”

His religious… _venture_ being drawn into question put a bad taste in his mouth. He plastered his patented smile into place, gave them something of a familiar sight even if he didn’t feel like that man. “Well now, how could I have contemporaneously plotted an entire robbery, in which no money was taken might I remind you, while helping Raylan with that check forgery mess he was looking into down in Harlan?”

Rachel quirked a brow and shot a look at Tim.

“Are you trying to claim Raylan as your alibi?” Rachel asked, unimpressed. But Boyd could read the surprise on both their faces. “Or that you’re Raylan’s Harlan informant?”

“Why would I need an alibi? I’ve already been cleared.”

“Another case to add to your file,” Tim said, his gaze focused on his computer screen.

“What file?” Boyd asked, conflicted between being insulted and giddy.

“The one as thick as the Bible Raylan’s got burning a whole through his desk,” Rachel said ironically.

“See, I knew I had a file,” he said victoriously to himself.

The sound of Raylan’s boots were what alerted Boyd to his presence and he looked up at him with a wide smile. Raylan kicked Boyd’s foot where he had his heel balanced atop the toe of his other boot, causing Boyd to squawk indignantly.

Raylan huffed a quiet laugh. “C’mon, I’m driving you home.”

“Now, why would I want to go home, Raylan, when I was having such a wonderful chat with your fellow Deputy Marshals?”

“Because I’m sure Tim will put one between your eyes if he has to keep listenin’ to your voice.” He turned his head left then right, cracking his neck to relieve the stiffness that had set in. He was ready to sleep the rest of the day away.

That got a small smile out of Gutterson. “I love his silky timbre. Gets me hard.”

“I’ve been told I have a silver tongue, Raylan, it is a gift.”

“Gifted from the devil himself, no doubt.”

“I hear you have a file with my name on it,” he said with a sharp grin.

“Course you’ve got a file,” Raylan scoffed. “Not like I started it, I was just the lucky sonofabitch it got handed off to.”

They’ve never discussed this and Boyd found it all very interesting. “I’m sure that was quite the shock, seeing my face for the first time in twenty years in a police report.”

With narrowed eyes, Raylan said, “Wasn’t my favorite moment, no.”

Boyd chewed his lip, failing to fight back a grin. “But not surprising.”

“The Nazi thing was. A little. Not that I bought into your talk of mud people and Cain anymore than you did,” he said.

“This feels like really fucked up flirting,” Tim said.

Boyd had almost forgotten the man was there.

Raylan rolled his eyes. “C’mon,” he said, hands in his jeans pockets, jerking his head towards the door. “Let's get you out of here before someone thinks better of letting you walk.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Boyd said. He stretched his legs and stood.

“They might decide you’re nothin’ but a liar.”

“Truth always sounds like lies to a sinner, Raylan.”

“Mmhm. You take those painkillers?”

Boyd rolled his eyes. “You just can’t wait for me to pass out, can you?” he teased. The painkillers made him drowsy and he’d likely pass out on the drive.

Raylan said his goodbyes to Tim and Rachel and Boyd grabbed Raylan’s hat, forgotten, from his desk and put it snuggly on his own head.

Tim and Rachel watched through the glass as Boyd caught up with Raylan at the elevators. He was saying something, making finger guns and bending his knees to make himself seem bowlegged. Raylan laughed and accepted the hat as Boyd offered it back, an open smile splitting his face. The two of them disappeared as the elevator arrived.

“That’s weird, right?” Tim gestured towards the spectacle with his pen.

Rachel looked a little perturbed. “It’s definitely something.”

  
  
  


The painkillers kicked in and Raylan had to guide a half-asleep Boyd to the couch. Both of them napped deeply until late afternoon. Afterwards, Boyd made him and Raylan a pitcher of sweet tea, putting a fair amount of Jim in Raylan’s glass, and then the two of them sat out on the porch while Boyd read. It was growing late, the sun just sinking low enough to touch the peaks of the surrounding Cumberlands. Boyd was just thinking about getting them more drinks when Raylan broke the silence.

“You didn’t tell me about Kyle,” he said.

Boyd closed the book he had been reading, setting it on the side table. “It wasn’t anything worth mentioning, Raylan. Kyle only spoke to me at that bar long enough to provoke me into laying him out on the side of the road.”

“Tell me.” It wasn’t so much a request.

Boyd took an even breath and Raylan could see his mind turning. Raylan had hoped they were past all that but he had never let himself get his hopes up. 

“Kyle was going to do what he wanted whether I helped him or not. And it’s not my responsibility anyway, Raylan, to talk every moron in Harlan County out of committin’ a crime, nor is it yours.”

“Conspiracy to commit robbery _is_ a crime.”

Boyd rolled his eyes hard enough Raylan imagined it aggravated his headache. “I figured, best way to stop them doing what they were already going to do was to play along.” He shrugged. “I had that safe open in half the time they had accounted for.”

“Wow,” Raylan said with overplayed awe.

Boyd flipped him the middle finger. “They were going to kill Shelby, then they decided to get rid of me as well. Think they must’ve known I was playin’ them. Or maybe I was just a liability. But I was the powderman, Raylan, they put all the cards right into my greedy, filthy hands.”

“So Shelby was telling the truth, huh?”

Boyd inclined his head. 

Raylan did his best to hold back a grin. “Called you a hero.”

His face scrunched up in distaste. “I do think I prefer being called an outlaw.” Boyd stretched his legs and Raylan watched as Boyd’s callous facade slipped away, like a cheap Halloween mask that’s string was just cut. “I wasn’t plannin’ on killin’ them, they- I thought I could stop them. I wanted to… Sometimes I act a real fool, Raylan,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“They really want you dead because of the thing at that Cumberland puddle?” he asked.

“I’m untrustworthy, tack on ‘the thing’ and then my being a fag.”

Raylan blinked dumbly at Boyd. “What?”

He shrugged and looked at Raylan with something unreadable behind his eyes. “Word spreads, Raylan. You’re not in Harlan so often, but I live here and I work here and I’m a goddamn Crowder, for what that’s still worth. My whole life is here, always has been. There were already rumours, Raylan, honestly.” 

He avoided Raylan’s gaze as he spoke, but gestured widely with his hands like what he said had no effect on him. He was so full of shit. “Some of the guys at the mine know I’m living in your house. Even if I hadn’t thrown myself at you last night for everyone to see, folk around here would draw the same presupposition about us sooner or later. I do believe we weren’t as cautious as we might have thought we were in our youth.”

Raylan snorted. They had been damn careful, from the first time Raylan kissed Boyd in the bed of his pickup sophomore year up till Boyd’s daddy threatened to have Raylan’s head when he was nineteen. 

  
  


There was a creek that moved through the hills on one of Bo’s properties, it was a secretive enough place, tucked away like a fairytale setting. Boyd had likened it to “Their Place.” They would pick up a six pack in town and Boyd would drive the two of them out there in his truck. They would fish, sometimes, or hunt squirrels. Boyd kept a .17 Winchester varmint rifle behind the truck’s bench seat, it was a birthday gift from Bo. 

Mostly, they would lay in the bed of his pick up and just talk about this or that, or Boyd would point out the constellations. 

“That one, there.” Boyd pointed a finger up at the night sky and Raylan scooted closer to Boyd to see exactly where he was pointing. 

The two of them were laying on their backs in the bed of Boyd’s Chevy, a thick pile of throw blankets beneath them. Sometimes they had a futon mattress to lay out that they had borrowed from Helen. It was late June in the summer of ‘88. It had been a hot and dry summer and despite the sun long gone over the mountains, it was still a nice sixty degrees and they both smelled of sweat and dirt.

“That’s Ursa Major, right?” He asked not for confirmation, but so that he knew Raylan was following.

“Momma always called it the Drinking Gourd.”

“That’s right,” he said, sounding pleased that Raylan was following. “Big Dipper. Little Dipper is just _there._ And you see that one, Raylan? That’s Hercules.” He took Raylan’s hand and guided his finger from star to star, outlining the constellation. “Sometimes it's called Heracles or Gilgamesh.” 

Boyd knew Raylan had learned about the Greek hero Hercales in English and he had read the story of Gilgamesh to Raylan once during a phase he had last year where all he wanted to read about was Mesopotamia and the Sumerians and he would get so excited about what he had learned he just had to tell Raylan. It was always Raylan. Raylan who would listen to him talk and talk even if, Boyd thought, he were speaking Latin.

“That star there is his club,” Boyd continued. “You see this, the Draco constellation, represents the dragon Ladon. Hercules is standing on his head.”

Raylan knew he loved Boyd that night, listening to him ramble on and on about the stars. Raylan remembered thinking that he would like to hear Boyd’s voice every day forever. He understood, then, that when Boyd loved something, he dove in head first, with everything he had. He would learn everything about it and cherish it and speak of it with careful words. 

It wasn’t long after that Bo discovered them.

There had been hands on Raylan, pulling him out of Boyd’s truck and throwing him on the ground. In a state of undress, jeans undone and flannel unbuttoned. There were punches coming down, on his face, in his ribs. He threw his arms up, trying to block them, but someone pulled his arms down. He heard Boyd shouting for him, calling “Raylan” from somewhere he couldn’t see.

Neither of them were strangers to a good fight, but they were outmatched, just two boys. 

Two of the men, Bo’s men, Raylan knew, pulled Boyd, face beat until it was turning black and purple, into their truck. He fought against them, struggling and kicking.

He couldn’t move, just layed in the dirt, being beaten by two of Bo’s men. Large, hulking men that were just hired gun thugs to do Bo’s dirty work. They left, Boyd and the four men, and Raylan laid there gasping for breath. He pulled air in, feeling it tear through his chest. They had told him to leave or otherwise stay away from Boyd and any Crowder, unless he was looking to wind up dead. 

He had gone to Helen’s. He didn’t tell her what had happened, couldn’t get the words out. 

Raylan was gone by the end of the summer.

  
  


“There’s always people like that in places like this, Raylan.”

“You might be the smartest man I ever met but you are most certainly a fool.” He pushed a hand through his hair and slumped in his lawn chair. “You could have just spilled everything, cards on the table, when they came by the house.”

Boyd leisurely stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. He looked to Raylan, meeting his eyes. “What’s that say about me that the thought never even crossed my mind?”

The muscles in Raylan’s jaw jumped, his brown eyes studying Boyd. Then, his whole body relaxed and he shrugged lazily like it didn’t even matter. “I don’t know.”

“I should have been more forthright with you,” he agreed. “I do apologize, Raylan. You are right. Perhaps I am just as culpable as those men.”

Raylan took a heavy breath. “I don’t think that you are, Boyd. I think that you like trouble.” He was a goddamn magnet for it. “I think you’re good at being an outlaw, but I think you’re also just damn good at getting whatever you want. You want to change? I think you’ll do your damn best at that too.” He shrugged meagerly. “Maybe I’m a fool but I believe in you.”

“Get inside,” Boyd said abruptly.

Raylan looked at him questioningly. 

“Up,” he said, jerking his thumb upward and standing himself. “C’mon, boy, get!”

“Boyd-?” He was cut off by Boyd pulling him to his feet and kissing him forcefully. Raylan couldn’t help but open up to him. He felt Boyd’s tongue and teeth. Their noses bumped together and if Boyd was anyone else it would have annoyed him. He groaned, already growing hard just from Boyd’s mouth on his. The things they did to each other, the way they worked each other up, it was almost laughable that they’d gone almost twenty years without it. 

Boyd palmed himself through his jeans with Raylan’s own hand causing the other man to bury his face in Boyd’s neck. “Mmh. Fuck, Boyd.”

Boyd’s voice was heady and breathy. “Get inside before I take you over this lawn chair, Raylan.”

Raylan laughed. The way Boyd said his name made Raylan weak in the knees. He loved it. Craved it. It sounded good and right there, like it was meant to be in Boyd’s mouth.

So, like a goddamn court jester, he said: “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story will go longer past the end of season two, I'm realizing.  
> If you spot any mistakes of any kind, please point them out to me.  
> Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter and especially those of you that left comments. Love you guys!


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

It was still early morning when Boyd parked his truck at the mouth of the mine. He had figured, what with the fanfair around the explosion, that someone from Black Pike management might take interest, but the fine, waxed passenger limousine parked along the retaining wall was a little ostentatious. He downed the rest of his coffee and climbed out of the cab of his pickup. He nodded to the baby-faced driver, his eyes still roaming the ridiculous vehicle. He half wondered how they got it up the mountain roads at all.

Before the new, temporary trailer that was only a camping RV, Boyd was met with the grinning face of a gorgeous redheaded woman. The wind blew her hair about her face wildly but it only made her look fierce.

“Boyd Crowder.” She said his name like they were old friends. “Carol Johnson. Executive vice president of Black Pike Coal. I’m so glad you came by. It is such a pleasure to meet you.” She stuck out her hand for Boyd to shake.

Her accent was Kentucky and he didn’t doubt her local roots, but he very much doubted her sincerity.

“Uh, likewise, ma’am.”

Her smile was sharp. She sized him up with a calculating stare, her green eyes sweeping over his frame like she was checking him out. Boyd knew her type though. Actually, she was Raylan’s type, he decided. Then he wondered what that said about himself. 

This woman was like a wasps nest.

“Carol. First off, I wanna thank you,” she gestured for Boyd to follow her, “for doing what you could to save our money, our mine, and most of all, the lives of our miners. Black Pike understands that the most valuable commodity in all our mines is the people.” She took Boyd by the arm as they walked and he elected to look over being called a _commodity._ “This company owes you a debt of gratitude. Which is why I was mortified when it was brought to my attention that you’d been mistakenly let go.”

“Mistakenly?” He very distinctly recalled that very deliberate phone call. Hell, he was only here now to get his paycheck.

She stepped in front of him, leveling him with what might resemble sympathy in a softer woman. “Boyd, I’m gonna cut to the chase. I’d very much like you to be part of the Black Pike security team.”

“Ah… well, ma’am-”

“Carol.”

“Miss Johnson, I, I mean no offense, and I would be thrilled to be hired back by your company. But if it’s all the same, I’d just as soon have a job driving a truck.”

“No offense taken, but it’s not all the same. I want you to be part of this team.”

“Well, again, ma’am, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not sure if you’re familiar with, uh- how should I put this? My _background.”_

Carol shook her head with a wide smile. She was entirely undeterred from her mission and Boyd got the feeling she wasn’t going to take no as an answer. “Oh, Boyd, I know all about your background. In fact, it’s what tells me you’re exactly the man we need.” She spun in her short heels. Her jacket was long and her skirt was short and Boyd wondered what the logic of that was when the air was so chilly this high up Black Mountain. “Now, how about we get started today, right away. A little road trip. You have a suit of any sort?”

“Uh, no, ma’am.”

“That’s all right. I think there’s a Penney’s on the way.” She looked to her driver. “Is there a Penney’s on the way? Yeah. Alright. Shall we? We’re on a bit of a clock.” She opened the back door, gesturing encouragingly for Boyd to hop in. “Come on.”

He hesitated for a moment, not giving away his own curiosity. He figured if nothing else, Raylan would have a laugh at Boyd’s expense when he regaled this to him later.

  
  
  


Raylan slowed his stride as he entered the courtroom, Boyd’s dark eyes meeting his from the spectator’s stands. Confusion was what he predominantly experienced at the moment.

“Boyd?”

“Hello, Raylan,” he said. He was wearing a suit, a cheap one, but not too ill fitting if a little big in the shoulders. 

“What are you doing here?” he wondered.

He felt like he had walked into a dream, like maybe his head was still on his pillow. It also kind of felt like walking into a room and finding the devil himself lying in wait.

A redheaded woman came striding into the courtroom before Boyd could fill him in. “Oh, they were gonna put us on a bench out there in the hallway, but then the plaintiff's family’s out there too, so everyone thought we’d be better off in here. I hope we’re not in your way,” she said insouciantly.

“Raylan, this is Miss Carol Johnson,” Boyd said. “She works for Black Pike, the defendant in the federal civil case before the court this morning. Miss Johnson, this is Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.” He spoke in a winded rush, like he wanted to get it all out before Miss Johnson could but in again. Boyd was not used to being interrupted. 

Carol looked up from her Blackberry and smiled at Raylan. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise. Forgive me if I was rude. I’ve been asked to uh- um, to make sure the uh courthouse is secure. So again, Boyd, what are _you_ doing here?” he asked pointedly and with emphasis. He knew Boyd was absolutely floored right now, throwing Raylan for such a loop.

“Boyd is part of my security team.” Miss Johnson answered before Boyd could explain himself in his own words. Words Raylan very much would like to hear. She sounded almost defensive, like it was she and Boyd acting on the same side. It left Raylan both amused and a little miffed. Boyd didn’t play for teams.

“Security?” Raylan wasn’t following and the smart look that Boyd gave him, that look that was meant to tell you that he held all the cards. Raylan, however, god have mercy on him, trusted Boyd. “I like the suit.”

Boyd’s smile was mostly in his eyes. Raylan could see his amusement clear as day.

Raylan checked with Miss Johnson that she did understand that the marshals provided courthouse security, to which she said, “I like having one of my own to watch my back.” It damn near made Raylan laugh. She truly had no idea who she was asking to side with her, recruiting Boyd. Sure, on paper he might seem like any ordinary hillbilly thug in Harlan; someone she could manipulate with the offer of authority or money. 

She was playing with fire and it was not Raylan’s job to correct her assumptions. He went on to check the courtroom for any “incendiary devices” as Judge Reardon had worded things. 

Boyd stood, looking hesitant as he crossed the courtroom and called Raylan’s attention softly. “Now, I would never presume to tell you how to do your job, Raylan, and I understand that I am very new to this security game. However, I have spent what one may call a considerable amount of time handling explosives.” Raylan started to grin the longer Boyd spoke and Boyd could only hold his own smile down so much. “And I’d be more than happy to walk around here with you, show you where _I_ would hide mine in case there might be a place that you might miss.”

Raylan shined his flashlight at Boyd, causing the other man to blink rapidly, before shining it lower to avoid his eyes. “Do you have any explosives on you now?” he teased. 

His dark eyes flashed. “Do you wanna pat me down?”

“Mmh. No. I’m sure you’re fine.” He clicked his flashlight off. “I’ve never seen you in a suit. You don’t own a suit,” he said, continuing his search around the judge’s bench.

Boyd shrugged. “We made a pitstop on the way.”

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing where this goes.”

“So,” Miss Johnson spoke up, meandering over, her heels loud in the quiet courtroom. “You two knew each other growin’ up?”

“Till the age of nineteen,” Boyd replied easily, stepping away from Raylan. He mentioned Raylan leaving for college and his time in Kuwait.

“And when did you guys meet up again? Wasn’t it around the time that _he_ shot _you_ through the chest?”

“Uh, well, it was shortly before that,” Boyd said, shrugging the incident off as if it were nothing. It likely was, more or less, nothing inciting from Boyd’s outlook. The affair left him a _changed man_ after all. Then again, Raylan wasn’t entirely sure what the state of Boyd’s faith was these days. “Miss Johnson has recently become acquainted with some of my past, Raylan.”

“So, Deputy, what do you think? Can I trust Boyd here to have my back?” she asked. 

Raylan took a breath and released it slow, his hands set on his hips. “Well, I am an officer of the law, and I’m in a court of law, and while not sworn in, I do feel compelled to tell you the truth.”

“The truth is the best policy, Raylan,” Boyd cut in.

“The truth is, I don’t know,” he answered. “He has tried to kill me and I have shot him and imprisoned him, but despite that he _has_ saved my life and I _do_ trust him. I couldn’t, however, rightly say if anyone else should or not.”

“My,” Ms Johnson remarked satirically. “Sounds like a love story.”

Raylan met Boyd’s eyes.

* * *

The burn of the whiskey was pleasant as Raylan took a generous swig before he passed the fifth back to Boyd. He watched his boy take his own large swallow, shaking his head like a wet dog afterwards. It made Raylan grin. Raylan, expert physician that he was, had deemed Boyd’s concussion healed enough to grant him the pleasure of alcohol, to which Boyd declared he would celebrate efficiently. Boyd leaned back against the chain link fence and watched Raylan take a few warm up swings with the bat, twirling it around like a sword fighter.

Boyd chuckled, his head rattling the fence.

It was real late and the night was cool. The stars were out, not as clear as down in Harlan but pretty enough to capture Boyd’s attention. 

“What you laughin’ about?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Reminds me of when we would break into the batting cages at the high school. You remember that, Raylan?”

The batting machine started it’s cycle and Raylan swung at the first ball pitched, making a solid _thwack_ with his slugger.“Sure. We’d drive up to Cumberland sometimes, they had better equipment.”

“Didn’t go so much after I got my GED.”

“Still came to my games though.”

“I am delighted that I did so, Raylan, otherwise I would have never witnessed you decimating Dickie Bennett’s knee so beautifully,” he said, accent and liquor slurring his words just a touch. It would hardly be discernible to anyone who didn’t know to listen for it. He pushed a hand through his hair and set the whiskey at his feet. “I wasn’t gonna miss those games for the world, Raylan, those pants did you all sorts of flattery.”

Raylan swung the bat, skewing the ball off course as he laughed. He felt good and loose and it was nice to be alone with Boyd after the hubbub the day had been for the both of them.

The day had left Raylan’s head swimming with a long laundry list of questions for Boyd. He wasn’t sure where to start and so he didn’t.

“You’re sayin’ you went to my games to check out my ass.”

“Yessir, I did.”

Raylan laughed, loud and raucously. He hit the ball straight but low, causing it to ricochet, and cursed under his breath and quickly moved out of its way. “Carol Johnson seemed nice,” he baited.

Boyd’s laugh was incautious and bubbly from the liquor and Raylan wanted to kiss him, knew he’d taste like pecan whiskey.

“She says my _background_ is why she wants me,” he said. 

He had a few ideas about what that could mean and he was undecided on how he felt about them.

“I tell you what, Raylan, that woman is not gonna last long in Harlan. Tryna get folks to sell their land to Black Pike. People won’t take too kindly to any of it.”

“So _that’s_ what she wants.”

“Mmh. Wants to put in a strip mine. Most people in these hollers have daddies or grand-daddies that fought the mining companies and they paid with their lives. Folks ‘round here don’t forget something like that and they certainly don’t forgive.” Boyd shrugged then muttered something about _Bloody Harlan_. “I ain’t supposed to know her business though.”

He slid down the fence and dropped to his ass, his legs stretched out in front of him. He snatched the bottle back up and threw back a good amount, wiping his mouth on his jacket sleeve. He glowered at the whiskey bottle like it held some secrets of the universe.

“Maybe I should buy the bar from Johnny. I know he’s been looking to sell, him being laid up and all.”

“Should buy an ice cream truck,” he said as he swung his bat.

Boyd’s laugh was sudden like he even wasn’t expecting it. It was hardly more than a giggle but Boyd would likely find those fighting words if Raylan said them aloud. He was definitely drunk.

“You don’t think an ex-convict sellin’ sweets outta the back of a van might give the wrong impression?”

“Fine,” Raylan said. “I’ll sell ice cream, you be the marshal. You’d really work a bar?”

Boyd shrugged. His words were really beginning to slur together. “Doubt he’d sell’t. Johnny hates me.”

“Why is that, a good law enforcement officer might ask?”

Boyd raised his brows. “You really wan’ get into that now, Raylan?”

“Mmh. No. You’re right,” he conceded. It was probably better to save that kind of talk for when Boyd was in a better frame of mind. The state of his relationship with Johnny Crowder was still a sore spot. “Running a bar’s gotta be easier than running a criminal enterprise, right?”

“Dunno, nev’r had to do finances all proper ‘fore. Filin’ taxes and ev’ry thing.” Boyd took a long drink from the bottle. Then he told Raylan, “You’re drivin’ back. I aim to be pre-cip-i-tously more intoxicated by the time we leave here. You just, just keep hittin’ them baseballs and lookin’ pretty, Givens.” He took another drink. 

Raylan shook his head with a wide smile and swung as the fourth ball was launched. “The view just as good as it was twenty years ago?”

“Oh, even better, Raylan. Age, quite unfairly, suits you, my friend.” He grinned wickedly at Raylan when the man turned to give him the eye. 

“I want to ask just what the hell you two are doing, but I’m afraid the answer might drive me to early retirement.”

Raylan startled. He jumped out of the auto-pitch’s line of fire and met the gaze of Art Mullen. “Uh, Art,” he said dumbly.

“Raylan.” Mullen looked calm but Raylan knew him better than that.

“How’d you find me here?” Raylan asked. 

“Tracked your phone.”

“You tracked my phone?”

“Yeah, I called you a few times. You didn’t answer, so I tracked your phone. Not like landin’ on the moon.” Art looked at the two of them, but mostly at Raylan, like he had grown a second head. “Am I missing something?”

“Only intrudin’ on something.”

Raylan kicked Boyd in his shin, causing him to squawk. He held the bottle of _Ole Smoky_ like he thought someone might try and take it from him.

“What did you need, Art?”

The older man seemed like he didn’t know where to start and Raylan fully expected to get an ear full. Whether he would lay into him now or at the office, Raylan really couldn’t say.

“What you do in your personal time is up to you, Raylan, but…” Art seemed to struggle for words, his gaze still bouncing between Raylan and Boyd. He sighed. “I don’t actually want to know.”

Raylan raked a palm down his face. Boyd was looking at Raylan and Art like he had never seen finer entertainment. 

“Carol Johnson, the Black Pike woman your boy here seems to be running circles for,” Art started. He shot a glare in Boyd’s direction. “You’re going down to Harlan to be her security detail. Pick her up at 8 a.m. Take her down to Harlan to that town meeting. Unless she asks you a direct question, keep your coal miner lovin’ mouth shut. Got it?” 

“I got it.”

“We’re talking about _this,”_ Art said, pointing sharply between him and Boyd, “later.”

Raylan nodded and his eyes tracked Art until he saw his truck lights flash on and pull away, swallowed up by the night.

“You get in trouble, Lefty?” Boyd looked up at him with wide eyes, looking far too drunk to have caught half of what just happened. Raylan himself wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened.

“Maybe. Why am I Lefty?”

Boyd made a sour face like Raylan was a trite idiot. “How could I be Lefty when Pancho was the ‘bandit boy’?”

Raylan shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

He wondered if Boyd remembered that Pancho was killed and left Lefty to die of heartbreak. He could just be misremembering the lyrics though.

“Whatever you say.” He swung the bat off his shoulder and propped it against the fence. “Alright, Pancho, let's get out of here before some underpaid teenager catches us and kicks us out.”

He offered Boyd his hand, leveraging the poor bastard to his feet and steadying him as he swayed dangerously.

He took the whiskey from Boyd and took a long swig. The pecan taste was a little too sweet for his pallet but Boyd seemed to have taken a liking to it.

“It’s gonna rain, Raylan.”

Raylan looked up at the sky but only saw a smattering of stars before they were drowned out by the light pollution over Lexington. “You think so?”

* * *

Nick Mooney asked for Boyd’s license and registration because of his “busted taillight.”

“What busted taillight?” Boyd drawled, handing over his driver's license with a lazy sort of indifference. 

The officer that Boyd didn’t recognize, said: _“This_ busted taillight,” and took the pummel of the tactical knife he kept on his belt to Boyd’s pickup. The red plastic cracked and peppered the asphalt.

Boyd wet his lips, his patience already being ran real thin. The last thing he wanted to do was tango with these boys. He and Nicky made hard eye contact.

“What you boys want?” he asked in a bored sort of tone. He had a feeling what all this was about but he wanted to hear him say it. “Doyle send you boys to find me?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mooney said. “But you add to that busted taillight the fact that you failed to produce a valid license or registration card, well, we have a bit of a problem here.”

“You tell Doyle and his brothers, they wanna take issue with me, they know where to find me, hmm? Hell, you can tell Mags directly. But right now, I’m gonna take my things, and I’m gonna go.”

“I’m gonna need you to step out of this vehicle, Boyd. I ain’t gonna ask you twice.”

So this is how this was going to go then. Deciding it wasn’t worth the fight, that he was officially the black sheep of these hollers, Boyd opened his door, his dark eyes tracking Mooney carefully, like he was an unpredictable animal. And as far as Boyd was concerned, the cops in this county were just that. 

Mooney knocked the wind out of him with a swift punch to his gut, causing Boyd to double over. He dropped to one knee on the pavement with a shuddering gasp. Mooney was no small man, solidly built and he packed a mean swing. He’d have been a good gunman, had Boyd had the foresight to try recruiting him.

“ _Shit._ ” 

Instinct told him to fight back, but he knew things could get a whole lot worse for him if he tried. No win scenario.

“You can call your marshal boyfriend when we get you to the station,” Mooney jeered. “Maybe he’ll pay your bail.”

Grinding his teeth, Boyd stood and attempted to smooth his shirt with an open palm. “I assuredly do not know what you mean, Nicky.”

“I’m sure you don’t, Boyd.”

Boyd figured he should be old friends with the process of being handcuffed and read the Miranda warning. It was irritating, still, nonetheless. 

  
  
  


The Bennett police station was nicer than Harlan’s, a little larger too. They had a potted red fern by their front desk, it was a nice touch. 

Raylan waited by the front desk as Miss Johnson laid into whatever officer she caught the eye of with enough redheaded ferocity to _almost_ pull a little sympathy from Raylan. He kept his hat shoved down his face. He’d like to blame his headache and his attitude on Carol Johnson but it was most likely the bourbon and lack of sleep. He was pretty sure he had a hickey that his shirt collar was only _just_ hiding.

“Well, it occurs to me that you were there to meet me the last time I got out of jail.”

“Let's not try for a third time maybe,” Raylan said. He adjusted his hat and tapped Boyd’s foot with his own boot. He had been worried about him.

It made Boyd smile. “I will do my utmost, Raylan.” He signed his release forms with a sloppy signature and gave Raylan a winning smile.

“Are you alright?” he asked. He looked Boyd over, eyes trailing up and down his body, looking for any signs he had been roughened up. The crack on his forehead from the mine was scarring over, healing nice, and his split lip was healing alright as well. Physically, he looked okay.

“Fine,” he said. “Mooney knows not to leave any bruises above the collar.”

“Unlike someone I know,” he said, adjusting his shirt collar. It got a rise out of Boyd who’s irritation lightened just a hair at the reminder of last night’s cardio. “Your ribs?” he guessed aptly.

“A little sore.”

Miss Johnson came trailing after Mooney shouting about trumped-up charges and lawsuits. Her eyes practically lit up with fire when Doyle Bennett appeared. “There’s just the man I’d like to talk to!”

“You keep some pretty notorious company,” Doyle said to Boyd.

“Oh, not nearly as notorious as the corrupt chief of the Bennett Police Department,” Carol accused. As though this was news in any regard. 

“If you’re referring to the arrest of Mr. Crowder, you should know that he has an extensive history of criminal behavior.”

Boyd looked at Raylan and rolled his eyes, only Raylan wasn’t as amused as all that. If anything, he was exhausted and irritated and he wanted to go home and crawl into bed with Boyd. Yes, Doyle Bennett was a petty bastard and a real asshole, but at the end of the day Raylan had a room full of assholes on his hands, all wanting to point fingers and he did not have such a large capacity for bullshit himself.

It irritated him in a way that he thought rather childish; the unfairness of it. Boyd had gone straight and this stupid county refused to let sleeping dogs lie. It was a little hypocritical of Raylan but fuck it. Boyd was always going to be a Crowder and he was always going to carry around that reputation on his shoulders so long as they stayed in Harlan. Raylan did his best to let it wash off him. What did public opinion matter when Raylan knew the truth of it?

“And a busted taillight is the best you can come up with?” Carol demanded.

“You should be more careful about the people you associate with,” Doyle told her. “I think Raylan could stand to learn that lesson himself.”

“Huh?” Raylan raised his brow at Doyle, not sure that he cared for what the man was insinuating. He shook his head. “Oh, no. You can go ahead and leave me out of all this.”

Miss Johnson had a field day over that comment but Raylan couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. He wasn’t her employee. If Boyd wanted to play whatever games of hers, that was on him, but Raylan didn’t want anything to do with any of it. If it wasn’t for the Marshals he wouldn’t be here at all.

“Not surprised to see you’ve got Raylan in your pocket now too,” Doyle said to her. “Got both the queers in Harlan whoring out to the mining company. Shoulda known where Boyd went, Raylan wouldn’t be too far behind. Like he’s got his prick stuck up your ass, Boyd.”

Boyd had gone still as a deer in headlights and his expression coolly blank.

“Is that what this is about?” Raylan asked with lazy annoyance. “You’re arrestin’ folk now on account of who’s cock they’re suckin’?”

Boyd’s head whipped around quick as a whip. He looked at Raylan with startled surprise and a little bit of awe. Carol Johnson’s jaw seemed to drop right through the ugly tiled floor and if Raylan weren’t so goddamn annoyed, he might have been a little amused. Even Doyle’s eyes went all round at Raylan’s forthrightness about his… proclivities.

“He’s right,” Raylan said to Miss Johnson. “In so much that Boyd here _is_ shady. Of course, he’s a lot better off than you, Doyle, isn’t he? And your company’s mountaintop agenda, Carol.” He grinned derisively. “In fact, I’d say he’s a hell of a lot better than either of you, in at least so far as listening to him talk doesn't make me wanna blow my brains out. So, as far as I’m concerned, you two deserve each other, but I’ve found myself ill advisedly attached to this one.” He pointed at Boyd, hand knocking into Boyd’s chest and instead grasping loosely onto Boyd’s jacket, like he was staking claim. Boyd didn’t mind so much at all. “And whenever this shit blows up in your faces, guess what? I won’t be here to clean up the bodies. So kindly leave my goddamn boyfriend out of it because I don’t want to have to shoot him a second time.” 

Boyd barked out a laugh. He stood with his hands in his jacket pockets and his brows arching as he stared at Raylan with unrestrained wonder and affection.

Raylan rolled his eyes and groused, “I’ll be in the car.”

He heard Carol Johnson start up a string of shouts about discrimination lawsuits.

In Carol’s rental car, Raylan moved his seat back to stretch his legs. He took his hat off and pushed his hand through his hair and scrubbed at his eyes with a tired groan. He wanted nothing more than to go home to the house he shared with Boyd. Or drag Boyd back to Lexington, get him away from all these lunatics and their agendas. He couldn’t shake the irritation towards Carol for using Boyd, using him because of his past. He wanted to take the both of them far, far away from here. 

Boyd came bounding down the steps not a few moments after him and opened Raylan’s door. He leaned against the car with his hip cocked and grinned at him salaciously.

“Are you hungover?”

Mashing his hat back on, he frowned. “Are you _not?_ You drank damn near that whole bottle on your own. We ain’t nineteen anymore, Boyd.”

Boyd shrugged. “Maybe I’m just a better actor than you, Raylan.”

“No doubt.”

“That was quite a speech you made in there.”

“Well, thank you. I stayed up all night working on it.”

“That whole part at the end about you not being around to clean up the bodies, were you just being figurative, or are you planning on leaving us?”

“I can’t remember.”

“What’s the matter, Raylan? You seem a bit agitated.”

“Do you get along with her?”

“Maybe you’re just feeling some anxiety about our current situation.”

“What situation would that be?”

“Doyle arrested me to make a statement,” he said, knowing Raylan had already figured as much. “He’s pissed about Black Pike, obviously Mags has her own ideas about these mountains. She’ll probably try and buy up the property herself.”

“You think she’s sitting on that kind of cash?”

He shrugged.

“Does everyone know?”

“About Mags’ cash? Probably. Her weed business is a far cry from a secret, Rayl-”

“About _us,_ Boyd.”

Boyd closed his mouth and looked uncertain. He had no doubts after Doyle’s little rant in there that the nature of his relationship with Raylan had played a role in Doyle’s attitude towards him. Doyle was working for Mags but he clearly had no qualms about giving Boyd a hard time for being a queer.

“She wants to speak with Mags today.”

“You coming?”

Boyd shook his head. “No, she wants me to speak with a few more land owners since she has you now. Divide and conquer, Raylan. She wants the house, you know?”

Raylan snorted. “It isn’t for sale.” He released a heavy breath and hung his head. “Why are you helping her?”

They hadn’t discussed it last night like they should have.

Shaking his head, Boyd just said, “I’m trying to decide something, Raylan. But I need her to trust me.”

“What are you planning?”

Boyd had that look on his face that meant he was organizing his thoughts and Raylan wished, not for the first time, that he knew what the hell was going on in his boy’s head.

“Worst case, I quit Black Pike and I become your trophy wife,” he flashed Raylan a row of shiny teeth. “Best case, you and I get a whole helluva lot of money at the end’a all this.”

Raylan’s eyes grew big and round.

“In a very legal way, Raylan,” he clarified. “Trust me, baby.” He leant into the car and kissed Raylan very firmly on the mouth. “I am securing our futures for three generations.”

“Three whole generations?” Raylan smiled against his lips. “Quite some foresight you got, my friend. How much money are you talkin’?”

He kissed Raylan again. “Enough to buy a Dairy Queen franchise.”

It startled a snorted laugh out of Raylan. Then, he had the sinking realization that he didn’t know if Boyd was being serious or not. 

“This is very sweet, boys, but we are on a schedule,” Carol said, causing the both of them to jump.

They pulled apart, but Boyd couldn’t muster the shame to be embarrassed. Raylan, on the other hand, knocked his head against the doorframe, knocking his hat askew and a nice flush filled out his cheeks.

“Be careful out there, Raylan,” he said. “I hear folk are gettin’ arrested on account of who’s dicks they’re suckin’ these days.” He shot Raylan a wink.

With the door shut, Raylan was back to being locked in close quarters with Miss Johnson. He was sorry to see Boyd leave, but he knew it would be for the best all three of them weren’t seen around together. If word had already spread to Bennett that he was involved with Boyd, then they didn’t need to be seen, arm in arm, toting the damn representative of Black Pike around the hills.

Raylan knew he was in this situation by assignment of the federal government, not by choice, but it still irked him.

Raylan’s eyes had drifted shut as they drove, but when he opened them, he saw Carol watching him with attentive green eyes.

“What?” His voice was thick with exhaustion and annoyance.

“That was a real show you put on in there,” she said.

He scoffed. “Says the one that was shouting loud enough they could hear you in Lexington.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you mean what you said?”

“Which part?”

“You and Boyd.”

Raylan sighed. _“Me and Boyd_ only concerns _me_ and _Boyd.”_

“Well, I’d say from the sound of it plenty of people have made it their business.”

“There have been rumours about me and Boyd since we were teenagers digging coal together. Doesn’t mean a damn thing.” Sure, making out at the mine in front of half the county’s law enforcement surely did not help. Either way.

“The two of you were making out in my car.”

“Then why are you asking?” he asked testily, his head still pounding with his migraine. “Seems like you have all the evidence you need.”

Carol’s manicured fingers flexed on the steering wheel.

“So you’re boyfriends.”

“We live together, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

He had also indirectly lied to the Marshals to keep Boyd out of a cell. Well, he had withheld certain details. He hadn’t allowed himself to really think too hard on it. He tilted his hat down to shield his eyes, his arms folded.

“I’ve also shot him in the chest.”

Carol drove the two of them up the winding mountain road.

“You two really are a love story,” she said with a self satisfied smirk. “I was right on the money.”

There wasn’t anything he could think to say to that.

They rode in silence until Raylan saw the Bennett’s convenience store looming out of the windshield.

“Miss Johnson, tell me again,” Raylan said. “In your head, what’s about to happen here?”

“Just gonna clear the air, have a nice, calm conversation.”

Raylan snorted and straightened his hat. “Nothing clear about the air around coal. Do you know these people?”

“I know of them. You?”

“I do,” he deadpanned. “You could say we have _some_ history.”

“Is that gonna be a problem, Marshal?”

“No, ma'am.”

Mags seemed underwhelmed to see them as Miss Johnson introduced herself. She offered her her hand and Mags engaged with stiff replies.

“I’m surprised to see you here with her, Raylan.”

“Marshal Service duty. There have been some threats.”

“Oh, Well that’s just awful,” Mags was saying, dripping with insincerity. Prattling on about being a strong woman or some nonsense until the bell above the door chimed and Raylan attention became distracted by the arrival of the Bennett boys.

“Miss Johnson, these are my sons, Dickie and Coover,” Mags said, all southern sweet tea. Raylan smothered a smile as Carol returned a small “hello” to Coover’s creepy “hey.”

Dickie said hey too, but his eyes were focused on Raylan as he wandered between isles, trying to puff himself up like a tomcat. Trying, Raylan could only presume, to be intimidating. Raylan’s eyes tracked him as he lingered, an eye on Dickie and an eye on Coover. Dickie even brought his goddamn bat, swinging it about like a swordsman. He looked like a real idiot.

It was Coover who stopped them, a dirty hand placed on Raylan’s chest.

“You whoring for the mines now too, like your butt buddy Boyd?” he asked, ever eloquent. “You two fags conspirin’ against the holler?”

He eyed the hand Coover still had on his chest. “Coover, you touch me again, there’s gonna be a problem.”

“I ain’t afraid of you, Marshal,” Coover said, all stupid vibrato.

Raylan leaned closer to Mags and in a stage whisper said: “It's nice to see the work you’ve done on your boys' self-esteem has paid off.”

“Coover, be careful, now,” Dickie tried to warn him off with a severe lack of sincerity. “You go beating on a federal, it can take years from you.”

“Yeah? There laws against kickin’ the shit out of his fucktoy too?”

Raylan cocked his head. “Yes.”

“Well you ain’t always around to protect him, is you?”

The insinuation of violence towards Boyd was what made Raylan’s mind up more than any real conscious thought. In that way he was no better than any caveman, but he’d admit the fault. He took his badge off real slow, watching Coover, and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He set his gun down on a shelf. He trusted the boy got his meaning.

Raylan was plenty good in a fight, trained to be so. Didn’t make Coover Bennett any less of a beefy, hulking man with fists damn near the size of Raylan’s head.

To put it plainly: He got his ass handed to him.

Back in the car Carol was bristling and Raylan wondered if she was about to lay into him the way she had Doyle. “You said history,” she started in as they drove away.

Raylan hissed as he dabbed at his bleeding nose with a tissue she had pulled from the glove box. “Just a little bad blood.” His jaw ached when he spoke.

“What, like, Hatfield-and-McCoy bad blood?”

Raylan chuckled. Put like that, it was startlingly accurate. Jesus, he was nothing more than a sorry hillbilly after all.

“A little bit,” he lied.

* * *

Boyd didn’t see Raylan’s town car parked in the yard but he knew Raylan had to escort Carol Johnson back to her hotel outside of town and would probably be a while still. The door shut behind him and not a moment later did a hulking figure launch itself at Boyd. He fought back, getting a knee into the man’s gut and then there were hands on him, everywhere, grabbing him and tugging him across hardwood.

Boyd was slammed against the floor by the meaty fist of Coover Bennett. He gasped and rolled onto his back and then Coover punched him solidly in the mouth.

“ _Fuck._ ” He spit out a mouthful of blood. Jesus, he couldn’t get a day in without taking a fist to his fucking face lately.

“It’s just business, Boyd,” Dickie was saying. Boyd would gladly cut his lying tongue out. “Got a little warning for you here.” There was a critter in a duffle bag, squirming around on the floor and making a fuss. Boyd decidedly did not want to know what was in there.

“You’re real stupid, Crowder, working against mama,” Coover said. His breath was hot against Boyd’s cheek and reeked something awful. 

There was a shotgun around the corner, propped against the stairs. He just had to get to it. And do so before Coover’s massive fist knocked his head from his shoulder.

He squirmed under Coover’s arm that had him pinned. 

“You tellin’ me my bein’ a fag is just the cherry on top?” 

“You bein’ a fag ain’t news to no one,” Dickie said.

Boyd laughed, loud and borderline hysteric, his head dropping to the floor. He pried an arm out from beneath the big man and elbowed Coover in the nose. A satisfying _crack_ echoed. It was just distraction enough for Boyd to slip his legs out from under him and scoot his ass across the floor. He scrambled, long legs very nearly being a detriment, and heard Coover start to chase after him. Boyd grabbed hold of the shotgun, cocked it, and held it steady with Coover who came up short, the barrel pressed flush against his chest. 

He straighten up and his tongue darted to lick away the blood from his mouth.

“Back up!”

He shoved Coover back by pressing the shotgun hard into his chest and causing him to stumble, then took several quick steps back to distance himself.

“Now, Boyd, don’t do anything crazy,” Dickie said. He stayed crouched by the squirming sack on the floor, a hand held out towards Boyd like he was trying to calm Boyd down or some shit.

“ _Crazy_ _?”_ Boyd laughed. “Boy, you danced right on past crazy!”

He fired the gun, filling the wall just above Coover’s shoulder with buckshot. The brothers flinched.

With brimstone in his eyes, he said: “Get out of my house.”

The sack on the floor kept writhing and shrieking and Boyd had enough of it. He cocked the gun and fired, the thing dying with a splitting final shriek.

Coover gave a wail like he was the one who had been hit. “You killed Charlie!”

“What in the hell are you-?” Boyd fired another round into the wood at the Bennett boys’ feet causing the both of them to jump. “You get the hell out of my house or I’ll gut shot the both of you.”

Coover gathered up the bag, dripping blood all over. Dickie, seeing how south this shit plan of theirs had gone, all but drug his brother out the door. “C’mon Coove. You watch yourself, Boyd.”

“I’ll be sure to, Dickie Bennett.”

Boyd listened as their car pulled away, watching their headlights as they sped down the drive. Once he was certain they were far away, he kicked the front door shut, annoyed when it wouldn’t latch thanks to Coover’s big idiot self ripping the dead latch clean out of the wood. Boyd sighed knowing he’d be heading to the hardware store in the morning and sleeping with a shotgun under the bed in the meantime.

Holding the shotgun in one hand, Boyd brushed the other through his hair.

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story exists because of manchester orchestra's "a black miles to the surface" album which has strong raylan/boyd energy.
> 
> as always, let me know what you think. thanks guys!


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

Raylan knew that something was wrong the moment he laid eyes on the house. A sliver of light shone onto the front porch, a bright streak of gold in the near pitch black. He took quick strides towards the house and took in the sight of the splintered door frame and busted lock. He unclipped his side arm and nudged the door open with his foot, the thing creaking on its hinges.

“Boyd?” he hollered.

He felt fear heat up his cheeks, Coover’s threat knocking around his skull. 

The hardwood was littered with buckshot, a pool of blood had left an ugly stain. Taking in the scene he could see that the walls had fared much the same fate.

“In here, Raylan!”

He found Boyd in the bathroom, cleaning blood off his face and dabbing carefully at his split lip. The orange glow of the bathroom light drew Raylan forward like a moth. His shotgun was left propped against the bathroom sink.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said and winced. “Was afraid he’d knock a tooth loose.”

“Jesus.” With a delicate touch he turned him so he could get a proper eye full of his boy. “What the hell happened?”

“Dickie and Coover Bennett.”

“Fucking hell.” Raylan took the washcloth from Boyd’s hands. “Let me.” He ran the tap till it turned warm under his fingers and wet the washcloth. Gently, he dragged the cloth across Boyd’s cheek and jaw, warming his suntanned face.

Boyd’s dark eyes took in Raylan’s appearance. “What happened to _you?”_

He snorted. “Dickie and Coover Bennett, if you can believe it.”

Boyd looked confused and then he just looked downright pissed. His boy had hellfire in his eyes. “I am going to make Dickie Bennett sorry he ever left his momma’s womb.”

“Now Boyd, don’t go getting Biblical,” he said easily. He kissed Boyd on his newly cleaned brow. “Dickie is hardly worth the energy. And I’m alright. My pride sure took a beating though.”

Boyd nodded. “Fine. But those boys walk back on this property and I cannot be expected to hold my trigger finger.”

“Deal. This best not become a habit though, my cleaning you up in the middle of the night like this.” Not that he would ever complain. He would gladly lick Boyd’s wounds for him till his dying day.

Boyd grinned. “I will do my utmost to curve the trend, Raylan.”

“Good.”

* * *

Dickie and Coover’s attempt to _scare_ Boyd only lit a fuse under him. Like taking a match to a dry field already soaked in lighter fluid. Boyd’s temper was a kindling thing that only required encouragement. He wasn’t like Raylan - he wasn’t a brawler, not that Raylan was any good at being one himself. Boyd’s anger manifested in cunning and deliberacy.

He was not invited to Mags’ hoedown, nor was he welcome in the Bennett’s holler. His presence earned him more than a few raised eyebrows. He knew Raylan would be coming, chaperoning Miss Johnson by order of the Marshals, not Raylan’s idea of a good time. Boyd, however, was determined to have an excellent time.

  
  
  


“Would you have done it?” Raylan asked later as the two of them sat on their sofa in lamp light, some show they weren’t paying mind to on the television. Raylan had picked up Tai on his way back from Lexington and they ate in comfortable companionship at the coffee table.

Boyd swallowed, his throat feeling dry despite the whiskey on his tongue. “I thought about it, longer than maybe I should have,” he admitted. “It was a _lot_ of money, Raylan, being dangled in front of me like a carrot on a stick.” 

“So no Dairy Queen?” he asked with exaggerated disappointment.

Despite himself, Boyd grinned. Then he shook his head.

“A strip mine would destroy those mountains, Raylan. I ain’t leavin’ Harlan so what in God’s name would I need all that money for? ‘Sides, I like the view.” He shrugged. “Mags tried, she took the deal, no qualms about it. I just couldn’t do the same.”

“Good,” Raylan said. “I’m glad you didn’t. You’re a better man than that. For all your faults, Darlin’, you love those damn mountains. Don’t get me wrong, the house is yours. You wanna sell it, we sell it. We can live anywhere.”

Boyd made a face, able to read Raylan like a book. “You miss Florida?”

“Of course I do,” he admitted, poking at his noodles. “It’s sunny and I think you’d like the ocean.”

Half of the time, Raylan felt like a haunted house. Trapped with its foundation plotted in Harlan soil, filled up with all the ghosts of the people he used to know. Only to see them today, twenty years on, and have them treat him like he was a stranger.

“Mmh. Maybe.”

Raylan kissed him then, sweet and undemanding. When they parted, Boyd rested his head on Raylan’s shoulder and felt Raylan rest his chin on his scalp. “I figure I made the right choice today, Raylan.”

“I think you did too, sweetheart.”

Boyd closed his eyes, his grin smothered in Raylan’s t-shirt.

* * *

When Boyd stepped through the twin glass doors to the Marshal’s office, the bullpen hummed with the sounds of men and women meandering through a tailend of a workday. It smelled like old coffee and the heater warmed the air. It was late, most marshals had already gone home for the day.

Boyd’s presence caught the attention of the ever vigilant Tim Gutterson first. He slapped an open palm against Raylan’s desk and the older man drew his eyes away from his computer to give Tim a dirty look. He followed the man’s gaze to Boyd and his eyes went all big and round and then he was launching himself out of his chair; crossing the room with long, urgent strides. 

He took Boyd by the arm, his grip gentle but firm. “Boyd?”

Boyd looked like hell, his nose was broken and swelling up dark and violent. The bruise had spread like an oil spill, like a splash of black, scooping out his eyes. To contest it were the violent bruises blooming across his neck; the clear outline of hands and finger prints. There was dried blood crusting a shallow gash across his scalp and his lip was split. His clothes were muddy. He looked shell shocked in a very un-Boyd Crowder like way. 

“What in God’s name…?” He made an aborted motion to touch Boyd, to take him by the face and assure himself that his boy was alright. It ended up as an awkward raising and dropping of his hand.

Most alarmingly, Boyd had a firm grip on the hooded jacket of Loretta McCready. The young girl looked at Raylan with a familiar expression of defiant anger. Beneath that anger, she was upset, eyes rimmed red from tears and cheeks flushed. Her hair was a mess, like she had tried brushing it out with just her fingers. There was a leaf caught in it and Raylan reached out to remove it.

Every marshal and office worker besides left in the office had dropped what they were doing to watch the spectacle.

“Raylan,” Boyd croaked. “Miss Loretta and I have some information we would like to impart upon you, concerning her missing daddy.” He spoke woodenly and held himself stiffly. His eyes flicked through the bullpen. “If there is somewhere we can talk…”

Raylan nodded and he offered Loretta a feeble smile. “Alright. Loretta.”

He took them to the conference room that Boyd was becoming intimately acquainted with. He caught Rachel’s eye through the glass of Art’s office. He pulled out a chair for Loretta and said, “Boyd, come with me a second?”

“I’ll stay with Loretta,” he said. He sounded exhausted but no less certain in the declaration. “If it’s all the same.”

Raylan nodded and said, “Alright. Just give me a moment then.” His plan to divert Art, to try and have a word with him before he threw him at Boyd, was curved immediately when Art stepped out of his office and met Boyd in the conference room instead, Rachel right on his heels.

“Mr. Crowder,” Art greeted uncharitably. “You care to explain just why you’re here and who this young woman is?”

Boyd wondered if Raylan was aware of the way he placed himself in front of him. He slipped his hands in his pockets in a failed attempt to seem normal.

Rachel watched them, curious. “You don’t look too hot.”

Boyd smiled weakly. He was wearing Raylan’s old flannel - was suddenly overtly conscious of it now that he was before these folk that Raylan considered his friends. He tried to put it out of his mind and took the seat by Loretta.

“Could I have some ice?”

“How about you tell us what’s going on and then we’ll decide how nice we wanna be,” Art said.

“This is Loretta McCready,” he said, gesturing to the girl who remained silent. “Her daddy has been missing some weeks now. It was my belief you were aware.”

“That Harlan County man?” Art asked, directing the question towards Raylan.

“Walter McCready,” Raylan said. “Yeah.”

“The state of your pretty face have anything to do with this?” Rachel asked.

Through a tight-lipped smile, Boyd said, “Entirely.” He looked Raylan in the eye, something like an apology on his face. “Coover Bennett is dead.”

Raylan felt a sinking feeling in his belly that threatened to swallow him through the floor. He half wished it would. He heard Art curse. “How?”

“Would you sit? You’re making me nervous.”

Raylan took the seat across from him but Art decided to sit as well but Rachel hung back, uncertain.

“Did he break your nose?” Raylan asked quietly.

”He did.”

“You set it?”

Boyd nodded. “I’m alright, Raylan.”

“I suggest you start at the beginning, Mr. Crowder,” Art interrupted. He seemed perturbed by the interaction; the familiarity of the conversing.

His eyes danced between Raylan and Loretta, practically paying the other marshals no mind at all. “Coover attacked Loretta. She called me when she got away but Coover must’ve known and he jumped me. His body’s in a mineshaft in Grens Holler, few yards down the trail from the collapsed mine shaft.”

“I know the area,” Raylan said.

Boyd nodded. “I’m willing to bet you search that shaft and you’ll find Walt McCready down there with him.”

Loretta, who had so far sat quietly in the chair beside Boyd, began to cry silently. Boyd looked startled and then he looked sad. Surprising Raylan, Boyd reached out and placed a hand atop her tightly clenched fist and the girl relaxed marginally. Her fist unclenched and she opened her palm, grabbing hold of Boyd with force.

“I’m sorry, Raylan. Coover attacked us. I was only trying to keep Loretta safe.”

“Alright, Boyd.” Raylan swept a hand across his face. He looked at Art and then back again.

“We’ll call local PD and the Staties, have them check it out,” Art said. “Raylan, you wanna meet them down there?”

Raylan did not want to drive back to Harlan. He didn’t want to leave Boyd and Loretta. But he trusted Bennett police to do their job (especially in this instance) even less so. It was going to be hell keeping Doyle off this.

He nodded. “Course.”

“Take Gutterson with you.”

“Great.”

“Rachel can keep Loretta company while Crowder and I have a chat,” Art said.

Rachel was clearly displeased with being on babysitting duty. “I’ll put on some fresh coffee,” she said.

Before he left, Raylan looked back at Boyd, catching his eyes.

  
  


They found Coover’s body at the bottom of the shaft, just beside the decomposing corpse of Walt McCready.

The State Troopers greeted them on scene along with not so subtly hostile Bennett PD officers.

Doyle Bennett arrived on scene with Mags in tow.

Raylan was good and ready to call it a night.

They returned to Lexington just as morning light broke over the hills to the east.

It started raining as they passed through Richmond, fat drops that pelted their windshield as Raylan drove.

  
  
  


Loretta was sound asleep on the couch in Art’s office, her legs folded up and her jacket acting as her pillow. Raylan couldn’t stop thinking about how shit things were about to be for her, how bad things have been for awhile.

It was early, before sunup, the office all but vacant save for two or three office personnel and a deputy or two.

Boyd was at the conference table, just where Raylan had left him; alone. He looked to be asleep, his head resting against the back of the chair and eyes closed. Quietly as he could, Raylan slipped into the room.

Boyd peered at Raylan tiredly. “Did you find Walt?”

“Thought you were asleep. Yeah, we found him, just where you said.”

He nodded and Raylan leaned against a chair, watching Boyd closely.

“Someone take a look at your face?”

Again, Boyd nodded.

He still looked horrible, yes, but the crack across his head had been bandaged and the blood cleaned away. The bruising was real awful, a nasty sight. It twisted Raylan’s stomach up in knots. Made him feel guilty.

“You speak with State Troopers?” he asked.

A nod.

“From what I hear, evidence is pointing in your favor.”

The sample they got off the mean strangle bruises on Boyd’s neck went a long way. Raylan figured he would be alright, but he couldn’t shake the fear that things would blow up in both their faces.

“Thank you,” he said.

“What on earth for, Raylan?”

He shrugged. “For coming here. For taking this to me.” Boyd was trusting Raylan to do right by him and Loretta and it meant the world to Raylan. “For saving Loretta’s life.”

“You think I’d kill a man and hope you never discover the body?” He smiled. “Leaving Coover in that shaft and never speaking about it, just sweeping Loretta away from Mags, bringing her to the house maybe. The thought crossed my mind, Raylan. Truthfully, it did.”

Raylan looked back at Art’s office, but the blinds were drawn and he couldn’t see Loretta. He sighed and took the chair adjacent to Boyd’s at the head of the table. He took his hat off and passed a hand through his hair, tossing the Stetson down on the table.

“You’re a good lawman, Raylan. You’d’ve known what I’d done the moment you laid eyes on me.”

A beat passed between them where they simply sat in each other’s company. It had been a long day and they both found comfort in each other's presence.

“There’s one thing I ain’t parsed out.”

Raylan hummed. “What’s that?”

“Why did she call me?” he asked, truly lost for answers. “I ain’t hardly exchanged two words with her. I knew her daddy but we weren’t close or nothin’.”

“I told her to,” Raylan said.

Boyd sat up straighter, causing his chair armrests to bounce against the glass underside of the table. His hair was a riot, sticking up every which way like he had been combing his fingers through it. “What?”

“I bought her that burner,” he explained, tapping an abstract rhythm against the table. “Told her to call if she needed anything. Walt had been missing and the investigation was out of my hands. I figured… well, I wanted her having someone who could help her.” He wet his lips. “I told her, she need anything I’d drop what I was doing and I’d be there, but if it was a real danger and she needed someone pronto, well, you’re always in Harlan, you could get there real quick.” He shook his head. “And she don’t trust the law, Boyd. I thought, well, maybe if she didn’t trust me she might trust…” He gestured towards Boyd.

Boyd laughed real low but genuine. “I could kiss you right now, Raylan Givens. Like to do a whole lot more ‘n that too.”

Raylan chuckled and fiddled with the buckle on his hat. “Yeah? Unfortunately these walls are glass. Folk’ll be rollin’ in soon. Wouldn’t do to see such an unsightly thing occurrin’ on this table.” He tapped the glass top.

Boyd threw his head back with a bright laugh, a grin overtaking his face. It was the most beautiful thing Raylan had seen in forty-eight hours.

“Have to wait till we get home I’m afraid.”

“Son, we get home and I’m sleepin’ clean through till Christmas.”

“Yeah? Feel I could do just the same.”

“When can I get out of here?” he asked.

“Soon. I’ll call Tom, see how things are moving,” he promised.

“I wanna go home, Raylan.”

“I know, Darlin’,” he said as he rose from his seat. “I’m gonna check on Loretta and I’ll make a call.”

The door to Art’s office where Loretta slept was left open so Raylan stepped through. However, Loretta was no longer on the sofa sound asleep, but rather, Art sat at his desk, looking at Raylan with a hard to read expression.

It felt like the floor beneath had reached up and taken Raylan by the ankles, freezing him to the spot.

“Art.”

“Raylan.”

He cleared his throat. “Did- How’s Loretta? She was asleep when Tim and I got in. I was just comin’ to see how she was.”

Art hummed, his gaze perceptive. “They escorted her down the street to Good Samaritan.”

Raylan nodded. “Good. Anyone call CPS?”

Art gestured towards the door. “I believe you were on your way to make a phone call, Raylan?”

He swallowed thickly and nodded. Deciding it was best to keep his mouth shut, Raylan moved on to his desk. The phone call was short and Raylan had the all clear to take Boyd home. On his way to gather Boyd, Raylan swung back into Art’s office, knocking superfluously. “Crowder’s been given the all clear.”

“They wave him of a possible murder charge so soon?”

Raylan didn’t know what he was insinuating nor did he think he’d like the answer if he asked. “Bergen said the evidence in Boyd’s support was pretty overwhelming. Nothing they can hold him on.”

“Hmm.”

“Art,” Raylan started, stepping further into his office. He glanced towards the conference room. “I don’t know what you overheard-”

“What I overheard was more than enough, Raylan, whether I heard all of it or not,” Art said. He sighed heavily and, fiddling with a ball of rubber bands, leaned back precariously in his desk chair. “We never did talk after I discovered your little pow wow at the baseball pitch.”

Raylan wet his lips. “It isn’t what it-”

“It isn’t what it looks like, Raylan?” he interrupted. “I am _trying_ to be patient with you and I am _trying_ to keep Vasquez off your ass, yet you insist on making my job hell,” Art said coldly, his voice rising. “I told you to stay away from Crowder, that any socializing with him could jeopardize our case against him.”

Raylan took a steadying breath.

“Are you  _ trying  _ to sabotage our case against Crowder?” he asked.

“What? No.” Raylan shook his head. “No, I-”

“Hey, boss…” Tim came knocking on Art’s office door a short stack of files in his hand. He paused dead as he noticed the tension. 

Raylan and Art paid him no mind.

“You fucked up our case against him the first time by sleeping with a witness, now you’re sleeping with the goddamn felon himself. Is  _ this  _ why you refused the Miami transfer? Because you’re sleeping with Boyd Crowder?”

Raylan sputtered, completely thrown for a loop.

“Uh…” Tim took a step back out of the room. “I’ll just… come back later.”

“That is  _ not  _ what this is, Art,” Raylan insisted. “And we don’t got anything on Boyd, you know we don’t. He ain’t involved in none of that shit anymore.”

“You know that, do you?”

“Yes. I do,” he said sternly. “He’s sworn off all that shit. He works for the mine now, he’s got an honest job.”

“That’s a nice thought, Raylan,” Art said. “But facts are, we still have an active case on Boyd Crowder. One which you are being immediately removed from. Do you have any idea how this will look to the AUSA?”

“You’re calling Vasquez?”

Art, frustrated, ran a hand across his mouth. “God damnit, Raylan. Just… just take Boyd home. We’re done discussing this.”

Raylan felt like there was more that needed being said, but for the life of him he didn’t know what the fuck to say.

“Take the rest of the week,” Art told him. “I’ll see you Monday.”

He nodded. “Sure. Fine.” 

Back in the conference room, Boyd was slumped in his chair, Raylan’s hat pulled low over his eyes. “C’mon, Poncho. Let’s get gone, you can sleep in the car.”

Boyd plants his feet on the floor, rubbing at his face. “God damn finally, Raylan. This place is completely inhospitable.” 

He gave Raylan a searching look and Raylan was sure that he had heard every word he had exchanged with Art. “My apologies. I’ll be sure to let room service know you’ve been dissatisfied with your stay.”

It rained on them the entire trip back to Harlan, annoying Raylan. He wondered what would happen now. Coover Bennett was dead and it would be no secret that Boyd Crowder was the man responsible. They would be coming for him, they would come for Raylan too. They had larger problems headed their way than some drizzling rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is shorter but i just wanted to get it out there. thanks guys!


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

By five o’clock on Monday morning Raylan was on the road. He rolled into Lexington Courthouse parking just before eight. The office was quiet, only a few marshals and a handful of personnel milled about. The front desk seemed surprised to see him at this hour as they checked his ID. It wasn’t common for him to be so punctual, he had beat even Rachel in - her desk still untouched. Tim was there, which Raylan had been counting on. He had a hunch the kid didn’t get much sleep most nights.

Raylan placed the second coffee he had purchased on Tim’s desk and took his seat.

“Didn’t know what you like, so it’s black.”

“White mocha with soy and extra whip,” he said dryly.

“Ha ha.”

Tim eyed him with suspicion. “You tryna bribe me after I walked in on Art rippin’ into you for sleepin’ with Crowder?” he asked after a long sip.

Raylan took a hard swallow of his coffee and coughed. After recovering, his face was a little red. “Think of it as an apology for havin’ to hear it.”

“Ignorance is bliss, Raylan.”

Raylan’s focus was now entirely on Art’s office where he could see the man having a conversation with David Vasquez. For the first time in Raylan’s career, he felt insecure in his position. Dread hung over him like an anvil suspended overhead by a fraying rope. There was only one thing he could thing of that would have the two of them discussing in private so early.

Vasquez gathered his notepad and as he passed by Tim and Raylan he gave a nod and a passing “gentlemen, nice to see you both,” on his way out. Maybe Raylan was being paranoid, maybe he was reading too much into things, but Vasquez sounded so goddamn smug.

Unable stand it any longer, he rose from his desk. He knocked but didn’t wait for permission to enter. Art hardly spared him a glance.

“Is there something I can do for you, Raylan?” Art asked shortly.

It all made Raylan feel remarkably like a contrite child. “You hear anything from Doyle Bennett?”

“Doyle Bennett claims that Coover _went rogue_ and attacked Walt McCready over a wristwatch.” They both knew it was bullshit. It was a weak excuse at best. “Where it stands, Boyd Crowder acted in self-defence and with the intention of defending Loretta McCready. She’s been assigned a social worker, they’ll move her to a foster family within the week.”

Raylan nodded. “What did Vasquez want?”

“Let me stop you there, Raylan. Not every conversation I have with Vasquez pertains to you. Actually, contrary to your world view, not everything is about you.”

“You’re pissed at me.”

“I am beyond anger when it comes to you, Raylan. I am, however, disappointed.”

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“Art-”

“You know that _thing_ that never happened that we never talked about? We’re not going to talk about it.”

Raylan could hear Boyd in his head lecturing about unhealthy habits of avoidance. Then again, Boyd was always the worst at practicing what he preached. Pair of double standard having hypocrites, the both of them. So Raylan dipped his chin in concession.

“I believe you are a good man, Raylan, but you are a lousy marshal. You carry on the way you have been and you won’t be my problem much longer anyhow,” he said. “So I’m not going to put myself through the trouble of worrying about you.”

Raylan wasn’t particularly bothered by Art’s anger, but he took the reprimand for what it was. It was not as if Art’s points were unfounded. Raylan knew being with Boyd was dangerous for more than one reason. It was like walking a tightrope. It was calamitous. Potentially, he could lose his job. He just wondered now when he started thinking of Boyd as being worth it - worth all the trouble he brought with him.

Raylan was willing to ruin himself for Boyd Crowder and it sounded so fucking stupid even in his own head.

He was so goddamn screwed.

* * *

Raylan stayed in Harlan far more often these days than he once thought he ever would. Strangely, he didn’t mind too terribly much.

The two of them went to the grocery store on a Friday evening. The passenger side door of Boyd’s Ford squawked something awful as Raylan climbed out and he shuddered against the cold. Winter was around the corner and Raylan could feel it all they way down to they way it caused his bones to creak. He wasn’t looking forward to it, the cold made him long for Florida sunshine and beach sand. Boyd, however, made it all a little more bearable. 

More bearable with his heavy denim jackets and surprising array of scarves. His love of the landscape as the leaves mottled orange and brown and slowly died. He grew somehow more saturnine with the season. Raylan sometimes thought of Boyd as the character of a gothic romance novel sprung to life by some bizarre hills magic or something equally stupid. It was a silly thought but it made Raylan laugh.

“What are we after?”

“You said you wanted burgers. We don’t have ground beef. Used the rest of that cow you got from Abe on that chili,” Raylan said.

Folks’ eyes loitered on them as they passed through the isles with a lack of subtlety. Word moved quick in a town the size of Harlan and ever since their little voyeuristic display at the scene of the explosion at Black Pike the two of them were the latest victims of town gossip.

Boyd nodded and said, “We should make a salad.”

“I’ll leave side dishes up to your expertise.”

“I tell you Shelby generously took me back on?” Boyd asked, knowing full well he hadn’t. He was willfully ignorant of people staring as he perused the selection of fresh vegetables. “I’ve got day shift.”

“Starting when?”

“Next week. Monday morning. Early, but better than late,” he said lightly. “Shelby says I can have whatever shift I desire. Truthfully, I was concerned they wouldn’t take me back on.”

Not after he explained to Miss Johnson he was no longer willing to be her rabid dog any longer. He thought Raylan might be more displeased with Carol Johnson than he himself was. Boyd understood it - the predisposition to look at Boyd Crowder and think, _for the right price this man will do all the dirty things I can not possibly do with my own hands._

“That’s really great, Boyd.” 

In Raylan’s books, Boyd knew, it most definitely was not ‘great,’ but it wasn’t up to Raylan what Boyd chose as his profession. So long as Boyd wasn’t robbing banks or committing hate crimes, Raylan had so far kept his opinions blessedly in his own dumb head.

Raylan’s basket was filled with ground beef, buns, and potato chips. While Boyd had happily picked out an array of fruits, vegetables, and pecans; citing a salad his mama used to make. Raylan wasn’t convinced red onion and peach belonged in the same dish together but he’d eat what Boyd provided if it made him happy.

Their cashier, a young man that couldn’t have been more than a boy of seventeen, eyed the two of them with weary suspicion. His gaze caught on the heavy bruising around Boyd’s eyes from his broken nose and the purple fingerprints that encircled his neck. Then they bounced to Raylan’s badge and sidearm.

Raylan tipped his hat because he was ridiculous and polite.

The kid wore a camo print thermal under the ostentatiously bright red vest that was his work uniform, to which a nametag with ‘Eli’ scrawled across it in unpracticed sharpie was pinned. He looked like every other good ol’ boy teenager in the holler. Thick, shaggy hair that was damn near a mullet with his Bass Pro cap crammed on his head.

Boyd knew he was gonna open his mouth the moment he laid eyes on them.

“You’re Givens, ain’t chu?” he asked. “The federal or whatever?”

“I’m a Deputy US Marshal,” Raylan corrected with that impatient smile he usually reserved for suspects.

Raylan truly possessed little patience when it came to today’s youth.

“What, like, Wyatt Earp?”

Raylan’s smile turned amused and a little more at ease. He was relieved the boy had skipped the more recent revelations of what Raylan was. “Something like that.”

The kid nodded. “Cool.” His eyes roamed all over the two of them as he rang up their groceries.

Boyd could feel the gaze of the man behind them on the back of his head.

“This what it’s always like for you?” Raylan asked softly. He cleared his throat, feeling awkward. “Can’t buy fucking toilet paper without causing a scene.”

He rolled his eyes. “Isn’t usually so much gawking when I’m on my own,” he said. “You’re really drawing all the attention.”

“Mmh. Lots of folks are uncomfortable having a federal marshal around.”

“Maybe it’s the hat.”

He adjusted the Stetson like he thought it really might be the hat and Boyd rolled his eyes.

Boyd paid for their groceries and Raylan gathered them up in his arms. “We could stop at the liquor store on the way home,” Raylan was saying. “We’re out of that bourbon you like, the one that tastes like-”

“Hey, Boyd!”

They both turned to see who was hollering. It was a burly man, around their age. He wore a heavy flannel and filthy jeans with even filthier work boots.

“Charlie,” Boyd greeted him warmly, giving the man’s hand a firm shake.

He patted Boyd on the back. “Hear you’re back on at Plackett,” he said. “When do you start up?”

“Next Monday,” he said.

“You get day shift? Shan and Curtis got moved to it.”

“Yes, I did.”

The man Boyd called Charlie nodded, looking pleased. Then his gaze wandered to Raylan and it was like his face shuddered. “You’re that marshal, ain’t you?”

“Seems to be the question of the day,” Raylan drawled. “Raylan Givens,” he offered his hand but Charlie didn’t seem keen on it. He dropped his hand lamely. “Mmh.”

He looked to Boyd. “Heard you had shacked up with a lawman. Didn’t realize you were struttin’ around arm in arm with him.” He laughed, short and mean.

Boyd’s frown wasn’t an obvious thing but Raylan recognized it. “No, Charlie, I just keep him cooped up in the house for when I need a good fuck. What in the hell you mean?”

“Wh- that ain’t what I… I just mean…” Charlie floundered for words. “I mean, _shit,_ Boyd. You go around announcin’ to the holler you’re a cocksucker and you invitin’ a world of trouble.”

“Is that what I’m doin’?” 

“Most us boys at the mine can look past it when you’re keepin’ it behind closed doors, Boyd,” he said, his tone growing bulldogged. “You start paradin’ it around and we ain’t gonna be so toleratin’ of it. It ain’t…” He shook his head like he was about to say _it weren’t natural_. Harlan was a God fearing enough county. “Fuck, guess I just didn’t realize you was a homo.”

“I fail to see how that’s any of your concern, Charlie,” Boyd drawled, dangerously calm.

“Boyd-”

“Be quiet, Raylan.”

Raylan turned his eyes skyward.

“All I’m sayin’ Boyd, is you should be careful. It ain’t natural, ain’t Christian, and you bein’ such a religious man an’ all-”

 _There it is,_ Boyd thought. “I’ve made peace with my God on the matter, Charlie. You best do the same or I’m afraid you may meet our Holy Father much sooner than He intended.”

An air of malaise and restlessness hung over them as they walked to the truck and while Raylan packed the groceries in the space behind the bench seat neither of them spoke. Boyd’s grip on the steering wheel was tight and he didn’t look at Raylan. His face was conservatively blank but his eyes were hard.

“Boyd.”

“Be quiet.”

Pursing his lips, Raylan held his tongue.

Finally, after several minutes had ticked by in slow silence, he dragged his gaze to meet Raylan’s. His voice sharp, he asked, “That’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”

A muscle in Raylan’s jaw jumped. “I don’t know. I think…” He blew out a heavy breath. “I’ve never been with another man,” he said gently. “After I left back when… When I let myself think about it the thought of ever telling anyone scared me so bad I was practically shittin’ myself. I never told my wife. Scared the hell out of me. Not because I thought it was wrong or- it was just so…” He pushed his hands through his hair, dropping his head against the bench seat. “I wish I was good with words like you.”

Winona had been there and it had made those things easy to ignore; to push down. He could tell himself he had grown out of it or that it was just private - something that had belonged to _him._ Yet the old fear of ever divulging what had once been to her had made him sick to his stomach. It had always tasted like a nasty lie but Raylan was remarkably skilled at lying to himself.

“I understand,” Boyd said and Raylan truly believed him. 

The thought of folk knowing never crossed Boyd’s mind enough to frighten him the way it must have frightened Raylan. There were rumors for awhile, but after Raylan left Boyd was in the mines and then Kuwait and then he was robbing banks and then prison and then there were hate speeches and rocket launchers and then prison again and rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

He never allowed himself to think about it. And gradually, folk became too frightened of him to question a dead relationship with a boy he used to know.

But Boyd had buried that man, that mean and horrible man that he was but several months ago, with metonymy. 

It was still mighty strange to him. Going to work and coming home to Raylan, or vise versa. Raylan walking through their front door and greeting him with warmth. Boyd was _trying._ He was trying because he loved Raylan. 

“Guess I just mean to say ‘I don’t know’,” Raylan said.

“Fuck.” Boyd scrubbed at his face and pushed his hands through his hair, standing it up all tall and wild. _“Fuck.”_

“Boyd?”

“I thought…” _Shit,_ he thought Charlie was his friend. How very clandestinely childish of him. He released a heavy breath then he started the engine.

Resolutely, he said, “Put your seatbelt on.”

“You alright?”

Boyd looked at him, his eyes roving over every freckle and scar and line on Raylan’s face. Looking at Raylan, none of it mattered. Every past mistake of his was forgiven. Raylan was a heavy coat draped over Boyd’s shoulders allowing him to brave the fast approaching winter. He was a balm to all wounds, new and old.

Boyd, with his mercurial temperament, said: “I love you.”

Raylan’s smile started a small and beguiled thing that grew until it overtook the whole of his face; caused his eyes to crinkle with the beginnings of crows feet. They didn’t say those things to each other very often but every time Boyd did it filled Raylan’s chest with so much love he wondered how he could even stand it.

“I love you too, Boyd.”

In that case, Boyd decided, who gave a shit about blowhards like Charlie? He shifted the truck into reverse, releasing the break.

Raylan’s smile grew big and wide and he laughed. “You’re a nuisance, Boyd Crowder.”

At the house, the two of them made dinner together and Raylan tried not to think about going back into the office and Boyd decidedly did not think about Charlie and starting back up at the mine. They didn’t talk about Mags or the hellfire the Bennetts would likely try raining down on them. Instead, they ate a nice dinner, had some beers, and they watched some film that Tim had promised Raylan was good. There were lots of explosions and gunplay. They watched until Boyd got bored and slipped a hand under Raylan’s waistband, dragging him in for a deep kiss. They messed around and made out on the sofa for over an hour until Raylan dragged the two of them upstairs.

“What if I transferred to Glynco?”

Boyd pulled away from Raylan, the taste of him still in his mouth. His brows were drawn together and Raylan bit his tongue.

“Not good timing?”

Boyd sat up on their bed, pulling himself off Raylan’s lap to sit beside him, dressed in his boxers and Raylan naked as the day he was born. “Well lets see, Raylan, I just sucked you off and now you’re suggestin’ you leave me?” Boyd scoffed. “And you wonder why you’re divorced.”

“I do _not_ wonder why. I know exactly why.” Raylan propped himself up on his elbows. “Well, sorta. I wasn’t suggesting I leave you, Boyd, I was suggesting that we…”

“That we both leave Harlan?”

Raylan gave Boyd a smile. “Yeah. I don’t know. Was just a suggestion.”

Boyd shimmied up the mattress and wiggled his way under the sheets. He tucked himself against Raylan who raised his arm for Boyd to get closer. Reaching under the blankets, Boyd pulled his boxers off and tossed them aside carelessly.

“Well, Raylan, what if I asked for time?”

“To think about it? How much time?”

Boyd wet his lips. “Just some.”

“Alright.”

He could offer Boyd time; more time was a small price to pay after so much time already. Raylan could wait a little while longer.

* * *

The thing about staying in Harlan when he, by all accounts, really didn’t need to, is that his alarm sounded at far too early an hour. Raylan liked sleep, but he liked Boyd Crowder more. He was lucky Boyd felt the same about him, otherwise Raylan was sure he would have been strangled to death by now where he lay.

The alarm woke the both of them, resulting in an irritated Boyd on those past mornings when he had only just arrived home a little while ago from his night shift at the mines. These days, however, Boyd would grouse weakly, turn over, and fall back to sleep - only to wake up in time to kiss Raylan goodbye and then into the shower himself. Boyd’s morning shifts had them more on the same schedule than before.

Raylan was on the road, headed for Lexington, before sunup. He noticed the headlights behind him after passing the turnoff that would take him through the pass and over the creek towards Bennett. He didn’t think anything of it until he was over the mountain ridge north of town and into Leslie County.

Raylan knew when he was being tailed.

Approaching Rocky Holler, nothing more than trailers and an auto body shop along a winding two-lane highway, he noticed the car on his six started to accelerate. Its engine revved and he got closer. Raylan saw it in his rearview mirror and braced for an impact. They hit his bumper, causing the town car to jerk and for Raylan to over-correct. It happened faster than he could keep up with. They hit him a second time, knocking his car into a guard rail. He didn’t hear his tire blow, only heard the cacophonous sound of the metal wheel screaming as it dug into asphalt.

It was as if for several moments Raylan’s world slowed. Then, all at once, it came crashing back in on him.

There was a repetitive dinging noise. The sound of his care engine. Voices he couldn’t identify.

There was pain, but it was dull. His brow was warm and wet, it dripped from his nose and jaw to his shirt and steering wheel. His damn airbag didn’t deploy. He stared at the steering wheel, hardly able to keep his head up.

“I think he’s still alive!” someone hollered.

There was laughing and whooping. Raylan couldn’t make out how many voices.

“Jesus. I think you mighta really fucked him up, Jay!”

There was shattered glass in Raylan’s lap and with macabre fascination he realized his window was blown out. Wind blew through Raylan’s hair. He wondered where his hat had gone.

A hand reached through and hit the lock on Raylan’s door.

Startled into action, he fumbled for his service weapon, blood slicked fingers struggling for purchase. He slipped the glock from it’s holster and fired, blowing the man’s skull open. Brain matter and blood splattered across the roof and door of Raylan’s car. He flinched away from the sound, closing his eyes against what dripped onto his face, and the sound that left his ears ringing.

The second man shouted and cursed.

Raylan needed to move and do so quick. He didn’t allow himself to think about the pain that arched through his neck and in his ribs. He unclipped his seatbelt and sunk down so that his head was covered and tried to focus past his own loud breathing. Peeking out he saw the man taking cover along the side of the town car. Raylan chanced it, reached his hand through the blown window and shot the man through his skull. 

Raylan dropped his head against the headrest, jarring an aching pain in the left side of his neck. He turned his head, didn’t want to see the lifeless faces of these men through his side mirror. He felt like he might expel whatever meager breakfast he had eaten this morning his head was pounding so bad. The ringing in his ears was deafening and persistent. 

He needed to call someone. He should call Boyd. He spotted his cellphone on the floor panel. Kicking it closer, he bent to reach it, his ribs screaming from the motion and causing him to gasp. Panting, he grabbed it, fingers just reaching far enough to scoop it up. Thumbing the button so that it came to life, he felt more confident, and scrolled through his contacts till he found Boyd’s name.

 _“Raylan?”_ Boyd picked up on the fourth ring, his voice husky with sleep.

He pressed the phone hard against his ear. His own blood made it sticky and tacky. Boyd was difficult to make out through the incessant ringing that dominated his world at the moment.

_“Baby, why you callin’ so early?”_

“Boyd?” Raylan shut his eyes.

_“Raylan?”_

He swallowed thickly and it tasted like pennies. His head hurt something awful.

“I’m, ah, _fuck,_ Boyd I dunno where…”

He needed to _think_ but it was so goddamn difficult with the way his head was pounding and pulsing and he thought it might hurt less to just blow it right off.

Stuntedly, he said, “I got hit.”

_“What? Are you alright?”_

“I need you to- I dunno where…”

The sun was going to come up soon, Raylan could see it peeking over Black Mountain, filling the holler with orange light.

“I can see Black Mountain,” he said on an exhale.

_“Okay. Alright. Good, that’s good, Baby. You ain’t too far then. Just over the ridge.”_

He heard Boyd curse and blow out a breath into the speaker. There was fumbling and further cursing.

_“You didn’t leave too long ago. You can’t be far. I’m on my way, Raylan. You just- stay on the line. I’m on my way to you.”_

“Okay, Boyd.”

Raylan’s cell quit working before Boyd got to him, the screen black no matter what buttons he pushed. Upon closer look, there was a pretty gnarly crack along the casing and he figured it must have crapped out. He waited for his boy but it wasn’t Boyd’s truck that rolled over the hill, but rather a State Trooper’s sedan. Raylan sat on the asphalt, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, facing away from the corpses of the men he had killed today.

“Raylan?” Tom greeted cautiously.

“Tom.”

“Are you injured?” he asked.

“Nothing serious.”

As if to purposefully contradict himself, he stood and swayed dangerously, losing his footing and catching himself on the trunk of his car as Tom made to grab him himself. 

“Easy, Raylan.” He pat him on the arm.

“Maybe,” he swallowed past nausea, “maybe hit my head a little harder than I thought,” he admitted grudgingly.

“You’re bleeding pretty bad.” He gestured at Raylan’s head and when he touched his scalp his palm came away wet with blood. “C’mon,” Tom offered him a steady hand, “I’ll call this in but right now I’d rather get you down to AR soon as we can.”

He didn’t understand. “Boyd-” 

“Crowder called me,” he explained with reassurance. “I told him to get himself to the hospital. That we’d meet him there.”

Raylan was confused and he guessed he looked as much.

“He wasn’t too happy with me, but he listened after I explained he’d be no help if he got himself stopped for speeding on his way up here.”

A second Trooper pulled up to the scene and Tom greeted him as he steered Raylan towards his Crown Vic. Tom dug some wet wipes from his trunk and passed them to Raylan. Looking at himself in the visor mirror he was shocked by his appearance. He looked like the survivor of some horror flick. Frustrated, he scrubbed at his face with the wipes, careful around the split in his hairline. Raylan watched the Troopers exchange words but didn’t bother trying to make out what they were saying. His head was still ringing something awful and he only wanted to see Boyd.

“Thanks,” Raylan said once Tom climbed back into the car, handing the container of wipes back to him.

Tom nodded. “Here.” He handed Raylan a bottle of water and he was happy to get the metallic taste out of his mouth. Raylan wanted to thank him again, for the water, but any further words he wanted to say got caught in his throat.

  
  
  


Several of the marshals out of the Lexington office were becoming familiar faces for Boyd. He was undecided on how he felt about that. The part of him that sometimes forgot he was no longer playing for the opposing team told him to go on the defensive, to play it cool, to be the silver tongued criminal they knew him as. Then, reason would sink in and Boyd would remind himself that it wasn’t _him against them_ any longer. It was just _He and Raylan_ these days. So when Boyd saw Chief Art Mullen he took a deep breath and reminded himself to be _normal._

Boyd stood from his hard, plastic chair and greeted the chief with a nod. He leaned his hip against Raylan’s bed and kept his arms folded squarely over his chest. He could see Deputy Gutterson in the hall, conversing with Tom Bergen.

“Mr. Crowder,” Art said shortly.

Raylan sat himself up in bed with a groan. He slung his legs over the side and shut his eyes against rising nausea. He looked at his boss with bleary, tired eyes. “Art.” He had only woken up from a restless sleep just a few minutes ago and it threatened to pull him back under. 

“I’m gonna assign you a goddamn handler,” Art said. He ran a hand across his face. “Shit, Raylan. What’s the verdict, then?” Art asked, concern coloring his tone.

“Hm? Oh. Grade two concussion, whiplash,” Raylan relayed. “Ear’s been ringing, kinda hard to hear right now. Nothing too exciting though. They tell me I’ll live.”

Headache for a few hours, stiff for a few days. His neck hurt something awful. He was sore and exhausted and the sight of him was a sympathetic one.

Art, despite his cold shoulder towards Raylan lately, seemed worried. “You wanna tell me what the hell happened?”

Raylan rubbed a hand across his face and through his hair, scratching at his facial hair. He had several stitches across his scalp and while the bandage was covering the worst of it, a nasty bruise was blossoming across his forehead.

He felt so goddamn exhausted as he explained to Art that someone had driven him off the road.

“On purpose?” Art was asking.

Raylan nodded and said, “I’d say so,” just as Boyd gave an emphatic, _“Yes.”_

“Any ideas?”

Raylan shrugged, glancing at Boyd. “If you’re asking for a list of who hates me…” he trailed off with a pointed look.

Art snorted. “Long list.”

Boyd listened to them go back and forth, his fingers tapping an erratic rhythm against his bicep where heavy denim covered thick black ink.

“Didn’t really get to interrogatin’ em before I…” He shrugged.

Art rolled his eyes skyward as if saying a prayer to whatever higher power deigned to still listen to his gripes regarding Raylan Givens. “Jesus, son.”

“It was the Bennetts.”

It was the last thing Raylan wanted voiced in front of Art. He closed his eyes. “Boyd.”

Art silenced him. “What makes you so sure?”

Boyd wet his lips and composed his thoughts. His head had been running in circles since Raylan called him and all he could think was that it _must_ be the Bennetts. He glanced at Art Mullen consideringly. In a soft tone of voice that betrayed his own fears, Boyd said, “I screwed them out of a _lot_ of money, Raylan.”

“What is he talking about?” Art asked of Raylan.

But Raylan never looked away from Boyd, just kept staring up at him with worry and something edging on disappointment. “Boyd?”

“Triple asking price and a four percent stake in Black Pike’s parent company.”

 _“Jesus,”_ Raylan breathed. “That’s…”

“Almost thirty million.”

“You turned that down?”

Boyd pressed his lips into a thin line. It wasn’t like he would be getting that same deal, but he would have gotten a pretty penny. He nodded.

“Fuck,” Raylan cursed softly.

Raylan’s eyes grew so round and bright and he was looking at Boyd like he had handed him the damn moon. It did funny things to Boyd’s stomach. Made him feel like he really had wrangled the moon but also a little like he was made of playing cards, just stacked up all tall and brilliant, but one heavy breath of air from Raylan Givens and he’d be a goner.

“You turned down thirty million dollars?” Art asked, disbelieving. “You. Boyd Crowder. What in god’s name compelled you to do such a thing?”

Boyd swallowed, his thumb pressed to his lower lip. “Well, Chief, Raylan does possess certain powers of persuasion.”

Art laughed. “What the fuck is going on?”

“We won’t sell the house,” Raylan said. “Black Pike needs the property for their strip mine. If we don’t sell then there’s no land deal for the Bennett property either.”

“You’re tellin’ me you got offered a thirty million dollar check for your shit house and you said no?”

Boyd nodded.

Art looked at Raylan. “And this is fine with you?”

“A strip mine would destroy those mountains,” Boyd said sternly. The argument sounded almost comical coming from him, he was well aware, but things were different now and well, Boyd liked his holler as is. “Run off would pollute the creeks and rivers, destroy homesteads. I’d be selling out my people.”

Art looked absolutely floored. “Who the hell…? Raylan- what? Did you lobotomize this man?”

Raylan only shrugged. 

“Dickie and Coover beat on me for _associating_ myself with Carol Johnson,” Boyd said. “You think they won’t hang me and anyone I love for fucking them out of that much cash?”

“Anyone you what?” Art asked quietly, sounding like he very much did not want Boyd to reiterate.

“I killed Coover, Raylan. Mags might preach to Helen about there bein’ no bad blood but can you say you honestly believe that?” Boyd swallowed and sofly he said, “I mighta bit off more than I can chew, Raylan, and I didn’t even do it in the pursuit of crime.”

Raylan chewed his cheek.

“You think the Bennetts are that vindictive?” Art asked them.

“Mags Bennett is and any one of her boys would go for another one’s throat if she gave the order,” Boyd was saying. “Those family ties are all smoke and mirrors.”

“I ain’t scared of the Bennetts, Boyd,” Raylan groused. 

“All the same, Raylan, I’d feel better if we stayed in Lexington tonight.”

“So would I,” Art agreed firmly. “Pack your bags, boys. We’ll station a marshal out front just in case. Help me sleep better tonight.”

Raylan’s instinct was to argue, and on a better day he would have. They didn’t need a babysitter to spend the night in the parking. It was a waste of time in his opinion, but he really didn’t have the energy.

“Fine.”

* * *

On their second day in Lexington, Raylan and Boyd took the morning slow. The previous day was spent largely with Raylan in bed and then in the marshal’s office while he filed his report on the incident and filed to borrow one of the fleet’s vehicles, leaving with an SUV that he groaned about the entirety of the drive back to the motel. They had found his hat, at least, to Boyd’s amusement and Raylan’s delight.

The activity of the day had taken its toll on him and the both of them slept well last sunup the following morning.

Boyd slipped out around nine to scrounge up some coffee and breakfast and returned to find Raylan just getting around. He sat on their bed with wet hair and only dressed in a pair of old sweatpants that had seen better days.

“Morning, Raylan.”

Raylan snorted. “Hey.” He laid down on the mattress, clenching his jaw against the pain. There wasn’t a bruise to show it, but his neck was stiff from the seatbelt catching him. His chest, however, was sporting a surprising array of colors from the belt.

Raylan watched Boyd with a careful eye. He carried himself differently these days, dressed a little different too. Raylan found it a fascinating shift.

Looking at Boyd, he found his thoughts wandering to Florida. It wasn’t an uncommon train for him to be carried off on. He often pondered if he could ever talk Boyd out of leaving Harlan; talk him into moving to Miami. He thought it might fit Boyd, in a peculiar sort of way. Sure, he’d stand out like a crow in a flock of finches, but he’d be so wonderfully gorgeous for it. He never knew how to broach the topic. He had mentioned Glynco thoughtlessly and they hadn’t circled back to that subject again. Raylan worried he would push Boyd away if he brought it back up; cause him to reevaluate what he was doing with Raylan. He knew Boyd loved him, he just didn’t know if Boyd loved him enough to leave Kentucky.

“You alright, Raylan?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

“You’re quiet,” Boyd said by way of explanation. He sat at the lousy little table, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, while he drank his coffee. Raylan’s still sat untouched.

“No I ain’t.”

A smile crept across his face. It made Raylan smile back.

“Just wonderin’ about things.”

“What sorts of things?”

Raylan rolled off the bed and dug for a shirt in his bag. He hadn’t been staying in Lexington enough to keep a stocked closet anymore. The place was kinda dusty too. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that - his almost _settling down_ in Harlan. It wasn’t what he wanted for himself. 

It was pointless, thinking about this so much. He didn’t know why he was nor why it was haunting him today of all days. Perhaps it was because it was the first the two of them had both been outside Harlan at the same time in some while. Maybe the fresh air, untainted by coal dust, was allowing him to think straight. He missed air that tasted like salt on your tongue.

“Just things,” he said. “My head’ll be right after some Advil.”

Dressed in Boyd’s threadbare _the Strokes_ tee, he sat at the table beside Boyd and took up his coffee. Boyd smiled at him warmly. The coffee tasted like heaven and Raylan hummed, pleased. 

“I talked with cousin Johnny,” Boyd said.

“Mh. Yeah? What about?”

Boyd shook his head. “We've been discussing the possibility of my purchasin' his bar. He's got it in his head that-”

Raylan’s phone started to ring.

“Who is it?” Boyd asked.

“Loretta’s social worker.”

  
  
  


Raylan had visited Loretta’s foster home before; knew the drive there without GPS. He shouldn’t know the route so well, but he may have driven by once or twice just to… he didn’t really know what he was doing, actually. He just worried about her. Made sure he knew the quickest way there from Harlan, from the motel, from the office. He just… worried. 

Loretta skipped town with three-hundred cash and armed. Raylan had a good idea who might have given her a ride. He visited Wade Messer’s address. He didn’t know Dickie Bennett was even there.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI.**

  
Consciousness crept back up on him mercilessly and with wolves teeth. The pain was not unlike someone attempting to sever his arm from his shoulder with a handsaw. His head throbbed with force, his vision swimming and pulsating, from Dickie’s initial knockout hit.

With desperation, he clutched at his head with clumsy, uncoordinated fingers. The pads of his fingers came away damp and tacky.

The realization that he was hanging by his ankles, gravity creating a tumultuous rushing in his ears, made his stomach churn. He swallows the nausea down with Herculean effort, his throat burning.

The word around him swayed and morphed. The grass beneath him seemed to dance and change.

Distracted by his own pain and frantic heart racing, he was blindsided by an impact connecting with his middle and he gasped a pathetic shout of pain. Dickie kept swinging, beating on his shoulder and abdomen.

Dickie laughed like a maniac. “The average human takes seven-thousand steps a day,” he said. “You know that, Raylan?”

Raylan groaned. His ribs throbbed and his vision swam dangerously. Dickie had a mean swing for such a slight guy. 

“I figure you owe me twenty years of steps for wrecking this knee.” 

Dickie swung the bat again, striking Raylan’s ribs with enough force to send him swinging, the rope twirling him in a tight circle. He gasped. He didn’t like having Dickie behind him and he didn’t like Dickie goddamn Bennett making him feel like a stuck pig.

Dickie laughed and then struck his shoulder.

Raylan bit his cheek, tasting blood in his mouth, and groaned. He tried kicking his legs; tried to loosen the hold of his restraints. He prayed for the tree branch to give, anything at all.

“You killed my brother, Raylan,” Dickie said.

“Wha…?” So that was Dickie’s problem. Raylan choked on a laugh that quickly devolved into wrenching coughs. Dickie was so goddamn stupid. 

“This ain’t no three-strike game, Raylan,” Dickie said. “I get as many swings as I want.”

He smashed the metal bat into his shoulder again and Raylan did scream, loud and wretched. It was like fire racing up his side and down his arm. He gasped, air burning his lungs, his chest heaving.

Dickie was still rambling off on whatever monologue he had likely rehearsed. Raylan wasn’t listening, his ears filled with the sound of his heart thumping away at a rabbit's pace. He couldn’t focus. Couldn’t carry a thought. 

“Hey, batter batter-”

“Raylan, I don’t know whether I should shoot him now or let him have a couple of more swings, then kill him.”

Raylan’s entire body went slack with relief at the sound of that familiar timbre.

He groaned. “I vote for th’ firs’ one, asshole,” he slurred through tightly clenched teeth, his eyes shut tight. 

“Dickie, take both them guns out of your belt and put ‘em on the ground right now.” Boyd held his pistol on Dickie with steady hands. _“Right now.”_ Dickie did as he was told, just not fast enough for Boyd. “Cut him down. _Now.”_

Dickie picked up an axe and with a solid _thwack_ the rope was cut and Raylan was on the ground. A shout escaped him as he landed on his shoulder and his vison darkened and narrowed. He blacked out for a second there he figured, because the next he knew there were hands on his face. The thought startled him. He jerked away from the hands. His boots kicked up dirt and grass as he skirted out of reach.

“Raylan!” Boyd was calling his name and he tried to focus on that voice. “Raylan, baby, calm down, please.”

“Boyd?”

“I’ve got you,” Boyd promised. “I got you, Raylan.”

“Boyd.” He grasped him by the wrists as tight as he could manage. Smearing his own blood across Boyd’s flesh like finger paints.

“You got anything more interesting to say?”

Raylan released a heavy breath, feeling it shutter out of him. He dropped his head into the dirt with a relieved sigh that was cut short by a moan of pain. His shoulder was aching and smarting but it was his head that felt like it was at sea.

“Asshole,” he muttered.

“You alright?”

On his back, Raylan laughed. He was still trying to catch his breath.

Boyd hummed. “You find Loretta?”

“No. No, she’s goin’ for Mags.”

He offered Raylan his hand and pulled him into an upright position. He swayed and steadied himself with a hand in the dirt, his fingers digging into the soil. 

He felt like a bobble head.

“I called your lawmen pals.”

“Didn’t think I’d ev’r see the day you ‘quested the law be in ‘tendance.”

He crouched down and squeezed his good arm. “These are unique times, my friend. I think you and I may have started a war and for what?”

Raylan shook his head and regretted the motion instantly. He swallowed down nausea. “I dunno.” 

Harlan was a powder keg and it wasn’t either of them that made it that way. This mess predated the both of them, Raylan only hoped it wouldn’t outlast them.

“Hey, look at me, boy.” Boyd took Raylan’s face in his hands, his palms warming his cheeks. “Raylan, can you look at me?” he asked.

Raylan’s gaze was unfocused and when Boyd bent to be eye level he felt his chest tighten. His pupils danced around Boyd’s face but never stayed on one thing too long. 

Raylan swatted him away, missing by a mile.

Boyd hummed then stood in a smooth motion. His gun back on Dickie Bennett. It was easy for him, being this man. “You send those boys after Raylan?”

“Who?” Dickie asked dumbly. 

_“Who?”_ he echoed scornfully. “Those men what ran him off the road, dumbass.” 

Dickie shook his head frantically, hands raised to heaven. 

Raylan knew Boyd must be a scary sight to a man like Dickie Bennett. Raylan only watched though, a hand curled protectively over his aching ribs while he remained on his ass a few yards away. 

“No! No, no, that- that weren’t me, Boyd! I don’t know what the hell yer talkin’ about. I swear. I swear. Boyd-”

“Bullshit!”

Still shaking his head he said, “I don’t! I don’t know nothin’ bout that. You gotta believe me. You gotta believe me.”

“See now I’m confused, Dickie. Why’d you come for Raylan then?”

“For his killin’ my brother!” he cried. “He killed Coover, Boyd.” 

“Jesus,” Boyd laughed. “This is a goddamn mess. Raylan didn’t kill your baby brother, Dickie. I did!” He watched the man’s face crumble and felt some sick satisfaction. “What do you wanna do with him?” he asked Raylan, gesturing at Dickie with his gun. “We could use him to… Well, nevermind now.”

Following his line of sight, Raylan saw the flashing red and blue lights of the cavalry arriving. SUV’s and cruisers poured over the hill and into the holler like a dam had gave out. Boyd quickly tucked his gun into his waistband.

He offered Raylan a hand and carefully pulled him to his feet, keeping a steadying grip on his good arm.

The Marshal’s and Staties swarmed the scene and Boyd watched with no small degree of amusement as Dickie Bennett was handcuffed by Rachel Brooks. 

It was Art who approached them. 

“Raylan. Are you okay?” Art asked. 

Sounding more together than he had since Boyd arrived, he said, “Peachy. Loretta?”

“We got her. Doyle Bennett’s dead, but we got Loretta. You sure you’re alright, son?”

Raylan nodded, punching his eyes shut against the sunlight. His breathing rattled in his chest, sounding like the old A/C unit in his motel room. It was labored and too quick. 

Noticing as Raylan started to list dangerously, Boyd was quick to catch him. He wrapped his arms around him before he could collapse, long legs folding beneath him. He had to leap out of his way as Raylan violently pitched forward and emptied his stomach in the grass. Bent over himself and looking pale. Sick getting on the toes of his boots.

He heard Art shout a curse.

Tim Gutterson rushed towards them. “He alright?” he asked, offering a bottled water.

Boyd eyed Tim distrustfully and, with very little thought, wiped Raylan’s mouth with his coat sleeve. “Dickie Bennett beat on him real good,” he told Gutterson. “I believe he’s sustained a concussion. Be mindful of his shoulder as well.”

“Which side?”

“Left.”

Boyd worked his jaw, vexation and distress taking over him like a rash. He was gonna kill Dickie. Was gonna end that family tree himself if he had to and then maybe still if he didn’t have to.

“We’ve got a medic team,” Tim said. 

“M’fine.”

“You are most definitely not _fine,”_ Boyd contended as he took most of Raylan’s weight onto himself. 

“Sure I am.”

Boyd helped Raylan to sit in the open cab of his truck. “You’ll have to acquaint me with your definition of the word, Raylan, because I am certain we don’t see eye to eye on this.”

Boyd wasn’t raising his voice, but he was starting to string too many words together in that brittle way he sometimes did when he was real upset. He and Raylan looked at each other - tired, hurting, and more in love than they knew how to hide. 

Art was shouting something at the EMT’s. 

He offered Raylan the water, unscrewing the cap for him. Raylan rinsed out his mouth, spitting in the grass, then chugged a good third of the bottle.

Raylan watched Tim as the younger man’s usually hard to read expression grew clouded, looking like there was something he needed to say but was having trouble with his wording. He cleared his throat like he was about to speak but then didn’t.

“Raylan,” Art was saying, marching towards their trio. “You need to let these men look you over, son.”

Raylan ignored him. One track minded till his grave. “Tim?”

“We need to take Boyd in,” Gutterson confided.

Raylan and Boyd made hard eye contact before Raylan asked, “Why?”

“FBI’s got a warrant out for his arrest.”

A shadow fell over Raylan’s face and then his expression shuddered to something blank and unreadable. “What t’hell for?” 

Tim gave a slight shake of his head, a silent _leave it alone_. “Raylan,” he said carefully.

“Art knows ‘bout this?”

Tim’s expression was a clear, _what do you think?_

“Fuck.” Hurting and pissed off, Raylan pushed himself away from the truck, searching for where Art had gone off to. 

Boyd placed a hand on Raylan’s good shoulder truly afraid he was gonna fall. “Raylan!”

“No.” He was shaking his head somewhat frantically. “No, tha’s not- where’s Art? Boyd, you can’t. I can’t-” He was shaking his head. Nothing was making much sense.

“Raylan. Baby, it’s alright.” Boyd took him by the face, pleased when his eyes met his own. “You and I both know I ain’t done nothing. It’ll sort out,” he said steadily. 

Raylan nodded. “Can’t lose you.”

“And you won’t, baby. It’ll be alright. You know me.”

Boyd stepped away from Raylan and, an old hand at this bit, folded his hands behind his head. “Deputy Gutterson.”

“You want me to read you your rights?” Tim asked. He was quick to wipe the bewildered look off his face.

“That’s alright, Deputy. I’ve got those memorized.”

Tim didn’t apologize as he cuffed Boyd’s wrists behind his back. He did, however, offer Raylan a short nod before he guided Boyd into the back of a black SUV. Boyd lost sight of Raylan as they shut him inside the van. The AC was on high and it chilled Boyd down to his fingers. He tried to catch sight of Raylan, distress eating away inside of him, but it was of no use.

* * *

“At that point Deputy Givens ‘deputized’ Boyd Crowder and joined him in a shootout that left…” Vasquez tapped his pen as if he truly had to think of the number. “Five- five men dead. A war broke out in Harlan between Boyd Crowder’s gang and the Bennetts that left two Bennetts dead, one in custody, a fourteen year-old girl orphaned, and nearly killed Raylan here.”

Agent Jerry Barkley, the FBI agent that was responsible for this mess, gestured towards Raylan. The marshal sat somewhat slumped in his seat, his arm in a black sling and a bandage taped to his forehead. 

“Now why is it, Deputy, that you were nearly the victim of Boyd Crowder’s war?”

Raylan felt as though he could laugh. He might have if he wasn’t so exhausted. His concussion wasn’t so bad as he feared, but the doctor had asked if he had someone to check on him in the night to make sure he didn’t wind up dying in his sleep. Raylan had lied, said ‘yes’ despite his boyfriend being in lockup. Injuries from the car crash ached anew and the morning found Raylan overall bitter and on a short fuse. His head pounding something awful.

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and longed for more coffee. 

“I don’t understand why I’m here,” he said. “I’m not on the Crowder case anymore. No one is, it’s a cold case.”

“We’re not interviewing you because you were on the Crowder case,” Barkley said dismissively.

Raylan spread his hands on the table in a clear _then why am I here?_ gesture. 

“A few months ago Boyd Crowder took ownership of the home left to you by your father’s passing,” were, brazenly, Vasquez’s next words. 

Raylan pursed his lips but, against all judgement, allowed the man to say his piece. He had a bad feeling that was growing, spreading like honeysuckle in his stomach. 

“Multiple witnesses at the scene of the explosion of the Black Pike mine claim they saw you making out with Crowder like teenage lovebirds,” Barkley said, disgust evident on his face and in his tone.

Raylan wondered which part of it he found repulsive. 

“There’s no case on Crowder,” he interrupted. “And there’s no law against having a relationship with a _reformed_ felon.”

He felt as though his throat was full of river rock.

Agent Barkley smiled something slimy and Raylan thought he might like to wipe that look off his ugly face. “It’s my belief that Boyd Crowder is conspiring with his cousin Johnny Crowder.”

A laugh slipped right out of Raylan this time. He’d blame it on delirium. “To do what exactly?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Is it? Look, Boyd isn’t exactly close with Johnny,” Raylan said. “There’s bad blood there ever since Bo Crowder filled Johnny with buckshot few months ago.”

Johnny’s misplacement of that blame onto Boyd rather than the man that pulled that trigger irritated Raylan. He kept it to himself, however. Knew that bringing it up only upset Boyd. It was a tender topic.

“You’re saying you have no knowledge of Boyd speaking with Johnny Crowder?”

“He mentioned that he’d spoken with him recently, sure, but he didn’t say what they discussed. I don’t babysit Boyd, I trust him more than that.” Raylan rolled his eyes. He could not account for Boyd’s every location. There had been plenty time for Boyd to slip over to Johnny’s bar but that did not mean that Boyd was _conspiring_ with Johnny. 

Correlation and causation and all that - something Boyd liked to say.

It didn’t mean anything at all.

He scratched at his arm that hung in a sling. Damn thing made his arm sweat. 

“I don’t understand what you're aimin’ at,” he said. He worked his jaw. “Whatchu so worried about them talkin’ about? Johnny’s hardly a mastermind and Boyd’s outta the game.”

“That’s not pertinent for you to know.”

“Why wouldn’t that be…?” 

Everything clicked into place for Raylan all at once. It was a jigsaw coming together or some other such lame metaphor. 

“Am I under investigation?” he asked.

“It’s my belief that you’re covering for the Crowders,” Barkley said. “Fallen for that silver tongue or some romance rekindled from your youth. And now your covering for him while he and his cousin do the Dixie Mafia’s dirty work. It’s my belief that you’re in the Crowders’ pocket and by extension the Dixie Mafia’s.”

Raylan felt his face flush hot from anger. “You’re accusin’ me of being a dirty cop?”

“It is our belief that you have been in Boyd Crowder’s pocket since your return to Kentucky or even before.”

Raylan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “It’s your belief, is it?”

His knuckles were white, his nails biting into the skin of his palms, but he was deaf to it. He knew, in a remote sort of way, that his hands were shaking. It was nothing overtly obvious but he felt like he was about to shake right out of his skin. He almost wished that he would. He looked at Art, feeling some twinge of betrayal. 

“This is bullshit and you know it’s bullshit.”

“Is it?” Art shot back.

“Is that a real question?”

“It had a question mark.”

“Kiss my ass.”

Art gave him a flat, unimpressed look.

There were pinpricks of heat behind his eyes that signified his anger. His rage was a hot and wretched thing that snuck up on him and made his head pound and threatened to send him to tears. He was mad at this Agent Barkley, he was mad at Art, he was pissed off with the whole situation. 

Raylan was displeased, even, with his own foolish heart for loving someone that he always knew would lead him here.

The helplessness of it all inflamed Raylan.

They proceeded to ask Raylan about his whereabouts for a handful of days over the past several months. They asked him questions about Boyd’s comings and goings. They asked him their relationship, the extent of it exactly. 

“We’re dating, if that’s what you’re fishing for. Just fucking ask the question. We live together, we sleep in the same bed. He cooks the two of us dinner and then I suck his cock. Is that what you fucking want me to say?”

Art rubbed at his temples and muttered something along the lines of _Jesus fucking Christ._ Raylan didn’t pay him any mind, too far gone and frothing in his own anger. 

“This is the hill the FBI is willing to die on? That I threw my whole career away for a life of crime because Boyd Crowder batted his lashes at me?” Unable to stop himself, Raylan’s Appalachian drawl began to slip into his words and to his own ears he was even starting to sound like Boyd. It was perfectly alright with Raylan. If that’s a yarn they wanted to pull on, then so be it. 

He felt Art’s gaze burning holes into the side of his skull. Vasquez looked less certain of all this than when they began.

“There’s been no case on Boyd Crowder for some fucking time now,” he barrelled on. “There’s no crime he’s been convicted of he hasn’t been processed for. You’re concerned he and I are on the upward swing of some impending Bonnie and Clyde spree? Believe whatever you want. You’re so certain of this, have me suspended.”

“Oh we intend to,” Barkley said. “While an investigation is conducted.”

“This is bullshit,” he said again. He looked at Art but his boss didn’t argue.

“I think that we’re done here,” Art interrupted.

“For now, Chief,” Barkley said.

Raylan watched Barkley and Vasquez gather their things while his mind turned. 

In a matter of moments, Raylan was alone in the conference room with Art. He tossed his hat across the table carelessly and leaned back in his seat. He pushed a hand across his face and through his hair, scratching at the stubble that was beginning to sprout over his jaw. Now that it was only he and Art, Raylan felt drained. The anger simmered under the surface all the same, but the brunt of it wasn’t burning inside his throat like coals any longer. 

“What in the fuck, Art?” The question was hardly audible. He looked at Art and he felt sickened by the betrayal that sat hot and heavy in the pit of his belly he didn’t know what to do with that feeling. 

His boss only shook his head and leaned heavily against the chair he had vacated. “You think any of that was my idea?” he asked.

Raylan knew it wasn’t, not really. It didn’t make him feel any better. “You could have warned me.”

“You wouldn’t have shown and then all this mess would have been dragged out longer,” he argued soundly enough. “You want to avoid being dragged through hot water, don’t go diving into it headfirst. Now, Raylan- now before you go gettin’ defensive again, you son of a bitch, I’m not pointing fingers.”

“Oh well thank god for that.” He scrubbed at his forehead, as if that would relieve any of the pounding.

Art scrubbed a hand across his face with a heavy sigh. “You knew this was going to get dragged up,” he said. “Your involvement with Crowder.”

Raylan rolled his eyes. “My _involvement?_ Jesus Christ.”

“Raylan-”

“Are they holding Boyd and I on something or can I take him home?” he asked. His shoulder was screaming at him to take a damn painkiller. With his free hand he massaged the muscle there but it did very little in the way of relief.

“There’s nothing to hold either of you on,” Art said somewhat reluctantly. Raylan knew that Art didn’t trust Boyd. He didn’t _expect_ that from Art or anyone in the office. He only expected Art to trust _him,_ to trust his call. “As soon as they’re finished questioning Boyd you’re free to take him. Assuming your boy doesn’t crack in there.”

“He’s-” Raylan stopped himself and bit his tongue; refrained from making a sweeping statement towards Boyd’s innocence. He started again: “He didn’t do any of the things they’re claiming, Art. Boyd and Johnny hardly get along these days. Most I’ve heard Boyd speak of his cousin it was his thinkin’ about buying his bar.”

“Boyd wants to buy Johnny’s bar?”

Tiredly, Raylan shrugged. “He brought it up as a way outta the mines,” he said. He pressed both of his palms into his eyes and stifled a yawn. “Only suggested it ‘cos he knows I hate him goin’ down there. I said why buy Johnny’s bar when he could buy one anywhere.”

“Like Miami?”

Raylan gave his boss a withering look. 

“It’s no secret you’re gunning for a transfer back to Miami, Raylan. You can’t save Crowder by sweeping him away from Harlan-”

Raylan groaned. “Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m not trying to _save_ Boyd! I am trying to… Would you just- I’m not having this discussion. I ain’t askin’ you to like the guy I just…” Raylan shook his head and dropped it into his palm. He pressed the pads of his fingers into his scalp. He felt like there was fucking string band going at it in his skull. “You know how hard I pushed the Crowder case, Art. I didn’t intend to…” Raylan felt the pinpricks of heat bring his eyes and pinched his eyes shut. He was so damn fed up. It was his business - _He and Boyd_ only concerned _he_ and _Boyd_ goddamnit. “I ain’t explaining this to you or no one. Barkley wants to embark on some witch hunt he can damn well go ahead and tire himself out in the process. There ain’t shit there.”

“I know there ain’t shit, Raylan,” Art groused. “You’re a damn idiot. But you aren’t dirty.” Looking beside himself, Art said, “They took Boyd downstairs. Go.” He waved him off. “Go see if they’ve finished up with that boy. And take tomorrow to rest that shoulder, Raylan. I’ll- I’ll let you know if Barkley tries to make good on that suspension threat.”

On a different day, on a better day, Raylan might have argued; made a whole stink about the suspension being bullshit and how his shoulder felt just fine. As it was, he didn’t argue. He nodded his head silently and somewhat regretfully. Today, Raylan was plenty happy to walk right out of there. 

  
  
  


Boyd was just where Raylan thought he would be, sitting in a hard plastic chair inside a spare room on the courthouse ground floor. It was a space sometimes used for questioning when the Marshal’s office was overrun with outside agencies like the FBI. Boyd was fuming silently in his chair but it was not an outwardly obvious thing, Raylan was just attuned to it. He knew damn well every one of Boyd’s tells and tricks. Or liked to think so anyhow. 

Opening the door on its noisy hinges, Boyd looked at Raylan and his anger practically pooled out of him. Leaving a puddle of defeat on the floor.

“Hey,” Raylan offered weakly. 

“You better have some good news, boy.”

Raylan smiled smally and jangled the keys to Boyd’s pickup. “I’ve come to spring you,” he said. 

Like a preacher, Boyd raised his hands high. “Praise the Lord, my savior has come.” He grinned at Raylan but most of it was in his eyes. He stood on long legs and looked every bit as exhausted as Raylan himself felt. “Your shoulder holdin’ up alright?”

Raylan shrugged his good shoulder; felt like he was doing that a lot today. “Feels like I got hit with a Louisville Slugger.”

Boyd made a face. 

“M’alright, Darlin’. They gave me some painkillers.”

They walked through the courthouse looking like a sorry pair. Boyd kept a hand in Raylan’s arm as if he were afraid Raylan may not make it on his own. It was a little annoying and a little endearing so Raylan kept his mouth shut all the way to the truck. Boyd took the keys from Raylan and drove them to the motel. 

Still, no one spoke. 

It was midday - the FBI having held Boyd overnight while Raylan slept at his desk - yet seemingly without a word exchanged they came to the same conclusion and gravitated towards the shower. They collided under the warm spray and Raylan felt that Boyd’s hands were everywhere - touching every inch of Raylan’s exposed skin. His mouth was searing hot against Raylan’s. Desperation was obvious in their desire to be as close as they possibly could be and their teeth clashed in sloppy kisses and their noses knocked together. It was messy and quick and Boyd picked Raylan apart with his hands and mouth.

Raylan’s breath stuttered out of him, ghosting over the shell of Boyd’s ear, as he spilled in Boyd’s calloused but gentle hands.

They cleaned up after that and Boyd’s large hands were mindful as he lathered soap across the marbled flesh of Raylan’s shoulder. With every bruise of Raylan’s that Boyd counted, he felt a mounting certainty (one that had led him down many an ill-begotten path) that he would like to string Dickie Bennett from a tree by his damn neck. 

He kissed Raylan on his shoulder with chapped lips. Felt a shiver run down Raylan’s spine. Raylan turned in Boyd’s arms. With featherlight fingers, Raylan brushed his thumbs along the violent purple and black bruises that scooped out Boyd’s eyes. His nose was healing well but the mark would remain for some while still.

Neither of them bothered to dress, only falling into bed together in a tangle of bare limbs. 

Raylan tugged the blankets over the two of them, burying his face in Boyd’s neck. He breathed in the scent of him. Two in one shampoo and a familiar musk. When they kissed he tasted like menthol and he wondered who let him out of the courthouse for a smoke break. He didn’t have it in him to spite him for the bad habit just now.

They should talk about Johnny and all that mess, Raylan knew that. They should discuss it and get to the truth of it so they could put up a united front. 

Worse came to worse and Raylan would see that Johnny Crowder wound up with a bullet between his eyes or behind bars. He would see Johnny’s world burn for dragging Boyd into his shit if need be.

The certainty with which he declared this to himself allowed Raylan to sleep soundly. Snoring into the crook of Boyd’s neck

  
  
  


Boyd woke before Raylan, drool that wasn’t his own warming and drying across his bare neck and shoulder. Boyd cringed and wrinkled his nose. Opening his eyes, he winced. Sunlight pouring in through sheer blinds. Turning his head to see the chunky, outdated alarm clock, Boyd saw that it was only late afternoon and they had only slept a few hours. 

It was not so late that the bagel shop Boyd knew Raylan favored would still be open for another hour. So Boyd rolled out of bed, wiping a hand across his neck. 

“S’good thing you’re pretty, Givens.” 

His boy was a fitful sleeper. Heavy drooler, decently loud snorer, and he had morning breath like no other after just a short nap. 

The bedhead more than made up for it. 

Boyd had been slowly coming around to liking Lexington for some time. He had learned some of its streets and eateries. It’s quieter parks. He had never been a fan of the city, despite Raylan’s insistence that it hardly qualified as such compared to the places he had been. Nonetheless, Boyd preferred the mountains and hollers and caves and tall trees over the multi-story buildings with their sleek glass window fronts. Harlan had everything Boyd could need. He will allow, however, that this city of Raylan’s offered some damn fine fresh bagels. 

Raylan was still sleeping soundly when Boyd returned, only stirring when Boyd shut the door behind him. He sat up with a snort and blearily looked around, blinking at Boyd against the intrusive sunlight. 

“G’morning,” Boyd said. He unburdened himself of a white paper bag of bagels and spreads and a drink carrier with two steaming cups of brew.

Raylan eyed the bag and simple unmarked styrofoam hot cups. “Did you go to Fletcher’s?” He made grabby hands at the coffee. 

“Sure did.” Boyd handed over one of the coffees.

Raylan took a grateful whiff and popped the lid off, tossing it into the general direction of the side table. He took a long sip, the coffee burning his throat. He hummed.

“There’s something to be said about mama’s cookin’ but mama ain’t never made bagels like these,” Boyd said.

“My mama never made bagels at all.”

“Mine neither and maybe that’s precisely my point, Raylan.”

Raylan raised a skeptical brow. “What?”

“I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying at the moment,” Boyd said. “I’m delirious with hunger.” 

Neither of them had consumed a thing other than coffee and smokes since who knew when yesterday. He dug through the paper bag and grabbed a fistful of a cinnamon bagel, taking a large bite before tossing one with chocolate chips to Raylan. Boyd grabbed the small tub of homemade cream cheese and the plastic knife and joined Raylan in bed. 

“I don’t even know how they make bagels,” Raylan was saying through a full mouth. He was getting crumbs on the bedspread.

“You still naked, boy?” he asked, holding the spread for Raylan to defile his bagel with. 

“Why?”

“Just thinkin’ of all the things we could do with all this extra cream cheese.”

Raylan scrunched his nose up. “Keep dreamin’ Crowder. I ain’t taken’ another shower,” he said, mouth still stuffed with carbs. Crumbs caught in his beard. 

Grinning like a madman, Boyd climbed across the mattress to sit atop Raylan’s legs. He leaned in to kiss him. Tasted chocolate chips and cream cheese on his tongue. He brushed out Raylan’s beard with a chuckle. 

“We need to see Johnny.”

Boyd rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and pulled away, a frown wrinkling his forehead. 

“FBI thinks you and I are in Johnny’s pocket. I ain’t sure what wounds my ego more - calling me a dirty cop or accusin’ me of taking orders from your dumb cousin.”

“Cousin Johnny has indeed never been the brains,” he said. “He is smart enough but he’s a follower at his core. Last he and I spoke it did not go as I intended. I didn’t know what he was up to, I truly was only curious about purchasing his bar.”

“What are you on about?”

“Johnny…” Boyd wet his lips, setting what remained of his bagel aside on a white napkin. “Ah, well, I was hoping it wouldn’t be necessary to disclose.”

Sitting up, Raylan pushed Boyd off his lap so he could look at him clearer. “Boyd.”

“Now before you get yourself worked up, I kept our promise, Raylan. Ain’t none of his business been brought into our home nor have I been party to any of it.”

_“Boyd.”_

“Johnny had it in his head to reach out to someone called Duffy.”

“Shit.” Raylan exhaled heavily and combed both his hands through his hair, causing it to stand up in tufts. “Did you tell the FBI about this this morning?”

Boyd gave him a clear _why would I do such a thing?_ look. “Pardon me, Deputy Givens. I wasn’t aware I was to report to you. Do you see a tracker on this ankle?” He hiked up his pant leg for theatrics. “Or am I just confused on the terms of our relationship?”

“That ain’t-” Raylan shook his head. “Just, why didn’t you tell me, Boyd?”

It wasn’t that Boyd didn’t want to tell him. It hadn’t come up. “Johnny’s business ain’t my own.”

“You had no problem ratting on Dewey Crowe.”

“Dewey fucking Crowe is a far cry from my cousin,” Boyd argued. “I told you what I know. He mentioned a man called Duffy. Sure he said it with some weight like I should be impressed that Johnny Crowder was making moves, but I never heard the name. Who is he?”

“Wynn Duffy,” Raylan said. “Dixie Mafia ties. I’ve been tryna get an angle on him for months.” 

“Well shit, Raylan. Why didn’t you just say so?” Boyd blew out a heavy breath. “Shit. That boy’s in over his head.”

“You think?” he asked with heavy sarcasm. 

“Hell. Let me talk with him, Raylan. He likes you alright without the badge but I don’t see that as a possibility.”

“I could lose my job, Boyd! They think I’m working for the Dixie Mafia.”

“Well, why do they think that? _Think,_ Raylan Givens! Whose hat is the FBI conjurin’ your name out of?”

“You mean besides my relationship with you making me an easy target?”

“Yes. They didn’t even know about that, not really. They had one eye-witness from Black Pike and some rumors. They had a warrant for my arrest and nothin’ on you. I got sprung ‘cos nothing stuck. Because big scary man in black refused to say where the tip came from. Why is that, Raylan?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. What does it matter?”

“They suspect you’re in Johnny’s pocket? Fine. You are quite literally in bed with the man’s cousin.” He gestured wildly to the bed the two of them sat upon. “It’s not an inconceivable leap. But why the Dixie Mafia, Raylan? How would they know if Johnny had any relation to them? You didn’t know and I was only made aware so recently.” Boyd was making a bug-eyed look like Raylan should be following along. 

“You think the Feebs have a leak?”

“Loose lips sink ships.”

“Someone in the Bureau is chatting it up with Dixie Mafia.”

Boyd shrugged both his shoulders. “Makes for sounder logic than you being secretly dirty this whole while and my never knowing.” He trailed off, muttering: “That would actually really piss me off, Raylan. We could have made good money together, you and I.”

The cogs in Raylan’s mind were turning. He ignored Boyd as he started on about a joint Givens-Crowder criminal empire and something about cocaine.

Boyd was giving him a cocky look.

“Fuck.”

“Mhmm.”

Raylan climbed out of bed and started scrambling for his clothes. His back and shoulder protested.

“You going to Johnny’s?” 

“I think I’ll pay my good buddy Wynn Duffy a visit first.”

“You know where to find him?”

“Unfortunately for him, I know how to find out.” He said, buckling his jeans and belt. 

Boyd grabbed his badge and sidearm and held them out to Raylan. He watched his boy struggle into his boots.

“You comin’?”

Boyd grinned. “Put a shirt on first. I’ll drive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really really late. I’m very sorry. Next one will be late too. I’m headed to BMT.


	7. Chapter 7

**VII.**

  
“Tell me again why we’re driving halfway to Pineville and not Harlan?” Boyd asked as he sped southbound in Raylan’s borrowed Suburban.

“Tim says Duffy’s motorcoach was last picked up on CCTV from a gas station near the border of Bell County.” 

“His motorcoach.” Now there was a word Boyd had never heard from a Harlan County mouth. 

Raylan snorted. He had his face buried in his phone screen, looking at security footage obsessively, and with a map of the eastern states spread out in his lap. 

The variety of maps and atlases and take-out menus he had was a testament to the boy’s lack of acceptance of modern technology. He had insisted on grabbing them from the glovebox of his town car while it was in the shop. Boyd found it all greatly amusing. Not that he had much of a clue what to do with his cellphone other than phone calls and the occasional text message. 

“Yup. The law and humanity itself should be grateful the two of you didn’t meet in your heyday.”

Flexing his fingers over the leather wheel, Boyd said, “I bet. How’s this play out in your imagining of things? I mean, in particulars.” 

“I’m just gonna have a talk with him,” he said. “I just wanna know who our guy is. See if Duffy’s holding onto any secrets he’d be willing to alleviate from his heavy conscience.”

Boyd hummed. 

“You bring your gun?”

He gave Raylan a sidelong look that was enough of a ‘yes’ for Raylan. 

“You know in all probability it’s that red faced Barkley son of a bitch,” Boyd said. 

Raylan nodded. “Yeah. I know. He was leading the investigation. He was really reaching, you know? Acted like we were the next Bonnie and Clyde.” He could only imagine how Boyd’s interview with the man had played out. 

Boyd snorted. “I prefer Poncho and Lefty.”

Despite himself, Raylan smiled. “Only we’re not _actually_ a pair of criminals. I’m a Marshal, in case you’ve just conveniently forgot.”

“Okay, Raylan. Pitch me a lawman featuring duo then.”

“Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday,” he answered without pause.

“I am _not_ a Doc Holliday.”

“Hmm. Bullock and Star.”

Boyd shot him a funny look. “That makes me the Jew?”

Raylan barked out a series of laughs, nearly knocking his hat off as it bounced off the headrest. The laughing hurt his sore muscles. Once under control he conceded.

“So maybe not that one either.”

Boyd hummed. “We’ll come back to it.”

Raylan directed Boyd around a few turns and through a small town but mostly they stayed along the Cumberland River until they came upon a flat enough clearing that created a gravel patch along the 119. In said clearing was the glimmering sight of the ostensible motorhome. Boyd put the car in park and Raylan stuffed his map back into the glove box. 

“He lives in that thing?”

“Mmhm. Far as I know. We don’t have an address for him. Just wrote in ‘douchy motorhome’ for place of residence.” Raylan checked his sidearm out of habit. “Let me see yours.” He held an expectant hand out. 

“Why? You don’t trust me to handle a gun?” he groused but complied. “Or are you suspicious of my intentions?”

Raylan checked that his clip was full. “You bring an extra?”

Boyd dug into his pocket and handed it off. “Honestly, son, who do you think you’re speaking to?”

“Good.” He pocketed both clips. “Stay in the car.”

“What? Raylan!”

He shut the door against Boyd’s protests, muffling his complaints. Boyd threw his hands up in irritation and then hurriedly opened his door to stand on the running board and shout over the roof. 

“I am not staying in this damn car!” he argued. 

“He won’t talk if we both go in there.”

“No? Then you should have taken that into consideration before I chauffeured your ungrateful ass through Kentucky for two and a half hours.”

“You wouldn’t let me drive.”

“You have recently sustained a concussion,” he said in a flat sort of tone that conveyed entirely how dumb he thought Raylan was. “It’s called backup, asshole.” Boyd shut the door with a loud slam that signified the finality of the argument and marched towards Raylan. “You ain’t exactly at your peak, Raylan. You could use the extra hand.” He gestured towards the sling around Raylan’s neck that was currently keeping one hand out of commission.

Raylan rolled his eyes and hissed, “Goddamnit.” He struggled out of the sling and threw it into the passenger seat.

There was no version of this where Boyd kept his mouth shut if he went inside that motorcoach and Raylan did not need Boyd’s silver tongue here. It was more the thought that Boyd and Duffy would get along that sparked the protest inside Raylan though.

After some deliberation Raylan caved. He handed a clip back to Boyd who gratefully accepted its return and loaded his Sig swiftly. He stuffed the gun back into his waistband. 

“Just let me do the talking,” Raylan said.

Boyd nodded like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to hold his tongue. He held his index and middle fingers up. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

As he walked away, he voiced his hesitation. “I know damn well you weren’t never a Boy Scout.”

Duffy’s bodyguard - or that’s what Raylan always assumed the young man to be - opened the door shortly after Raylan’s three rapid knocks. He smiled woodenly at the younger man, tilting his hat to shield the early evening sun. One hand he kept on his hip, brushing his jacket aside and revealing his sidearm and badge.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” the guy said. Raylan was drawing a blank on his name.

“That’s too bad,” Raylan said. “Tell him I just have a few questions. In and out. Five minutes.”

“Mikey. Who is it?”

Mikey, Raylan now remembered hearing that before, leaned back inside. “It’s the cowboy Marshal.”

Duffy appeared behind his muscle shield. A single line of displeasure creasing his botoxed forehead. “Raylan Givens!” he greeted with faux pleasure. “What the hell do you want?” He glanced at Boyd but his attention remained on Raylan. 

“Just a word, Wynn.”

“Now why would I want to talk to you?”

“I really am not asking.” 

To Boyd’s surprise, Raylan shoved his way inside past both men. Mikey stumbled back, like he wasn’t sure what he was meant to be doing to protect his employer. He wasn’t so stupid as to think he could lay hands on a Federal. Raylan grabbed Duffy by the shirt collar and shoved him into a seat none too gently. 

“Now, Marshal-!”

“Shut up.” He pointed at Mikey. “You. Outside.” The order was followed after some short internal deliberation. His footsteps heavy on the stairs. 

Boyd was halfway up the motorcoach’s steps, watching his boy with a gleam in his eyes that usually spelled trouble. 

“Wait outside,” Raylan told him sternly. 

“Not likely.” Boyd kept his eyes trained on Wynn Duffy, like he were committing the man’s likeness to his mental catalogue of those who’ve wronged him. Raylan was sure, whether accurate or not, that it was quite the extensive list. “This the man that had you ran off the road?”

Wynn looked between the two of them. “What are we talking about? Who is this?”

It was like a shadow had shuttered over Boyd and his dark eyes hardened. This was exactly what Raylan was hoping to avoid.

“You sending men after Deputy Givens?” Boyd asked coolly, prowling through the motorhome like a predator. His movements often reminded Raylan of some large, sleek jungle cat. 

“We don’t know that,” Raylan reminded him.

The hackles on Boyd’s neck rose but he listened to Raylan’s reason.

“You bring backup, Deputy?” Wynn asked, amused. “He doesn’t look Federal.”

“Shut up.” He planted his good hand on his hip. “You’re gonna speak when spoken to. Now, you’re gonna give me a name, at least one name, and we’re gonna make this quick because it’s my day off.”

“You’re not looking your best, Marshal Givens.” Wynn leaned back on the sofa, crossing his legs.

He wondered if it would kill the guy to call him by the appropriate title just once. “I spent a good fourth of an afternoon swingin’ from a tree while gettin’ knocked around like a piñata. Before that, my car was ran off the road by a couple armed men who I unfortunately had to kill, but you might know about that already. I’d say I’m looking pretty good for it.”

“I’m gonna take a guess that candy did not spill out.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Oh?”

“A name, Duffy,” he said. “I’m not gonna keep asking.”

Duffy shook his head. “I really don’t know what you’re-”

Raylan presses his lips into a thin line. “Who’s your man on the inside?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The Dixie Mafia’s guy in the Bureau.”

Wynn laughed. “Now why would I know a thing like that, Deputy?”

Raylan inhaled slow and blew out a sharp breath. He felt Boyd’s presence at his back, his body heat warming his spine.

“Alright,” he said. He took out his sidearm, unclipping the holster real slow. “I ain’t gonna do this all day, Wynn. Tell me what you know and I’ll keep your name out of it. Best I can.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raylan.”

He tapped the gun against his thigh. “I can make this incredibly hard for you. Or we can drag this out.” He loaded a bullet into the chamber with a loud click. 

“Are you insane?” Duffy balked.

Boyd’s eyes sparkled but he took on that slimy, cool façade that made him so good at what he once did. It was like watching the Boyd Crowder that had been buried for some time now uncoil and prepare to strike.

“I’m running real short on patience today,” Raylan said shortly. “Who’s your guy, Duffy?”

“Why are you so convinced I have one?”

“Because someone in the FBI knows all about Johnny Crowder chatting it up with Dixie Mafia - now you and I both know that _I_ know that’s _you._ Your man Johnny is the wrong horse to be bettin’ on, Wynn. He can’t stand on his own.”

“Is that a wheelchair joke?”

“Johnny is not exactly a trailblazer,” Boyd interjected. “Needs to learn to put his foot down. He came calling on his cousin for help.”

“His cousin being _you?”_

Boyd smiled real slow. “Boyd Crowder,” he introduced himself.

He hopped atop the counter that made up the entirety of the coach’s kitchen to sit languidly. He effected an air of cool calm, like he were entirely in control of the situation. The heels of his boots knocked against the cabinet door. Raylan could see him out of the corner of his eye and knew he was enjoying himself. 

“It’s a real shame I ain’t still in the business,” Boyd continued in that outlaw _I’m so much smarter than you_ drawl of his. “I made a recent career change, you know how it is. We could’ve been meeting under better circumstances, you and I. And all of this would be going a little differently today.”

“I’m sure.” Duffy seemed confused. 

“Boyd’s the son of Bo Crowder,” Raylan said. “The man that died and left Johnny feeling like the king of Harlan County.”

“So you’re saying I should be backing this man?” he asked, gesturing to Boyd. “Now you're giving people you suspect of criminal activity advice on how to conduct their businesses? Are you playing criminal matchmaker, Deputy?”

“He is the smart one, but no. He’s retired and taken,” Raylan said. 

“Okay?”

“Whoever your boy is in the Bureau, he, or _she,_ wants Raylan out of the way in order to better protect his own interests,” Boyd said, leaning forward on his perch to rest his elbows on his knees. “I have an invested interest of my own in Raylan Givens. I would hate to see him go to jail.”

“This man’s interests being?”

“Money,” Boyd said, slipping off the counter top. “Or power. I think that you and I both understand how those are quite the motivators. Can really put a fire under someone’s feet. Your boy don’t feel you're giving him enough of the cut! Or maybe not enough of the credit. Either way, he is attemptin’ to remove Raylan by way of implicating him of certain affiliations and criminal activities for which he is innocent. He has made himself a bit of an easy target on that front. I’ll admit, by some fault of my own. 

“Get Raylan out of the way and-” He snapped his fingers followed by a jazzy hand gesture. “No one to poke their nose in your unsavory business. And Raylan’s been sniffing around your whole Dixie Mafia set up for months. Someone’s feeling threatened.”

“Wow,” Wynn said after a beat. “Maybe you really are the smart one. Easy target how?”

Raylan wet his lips. Unbidden, his eyes flashed towards Boyd. 

Duffy smiled. “Ah. The two of you. Whatever is going on between the two of you has your Marshals suspicious of foul play.” He cocked his head at Raylan. “My, my, Marshal Givens. Fraternizing with the criminal class, are you?”

“The Bureau is suspicious of the nature of mine and Boyd’s relationship,” Raylan admitted. 

“The _nature_ of your relationship?” There was a click that was made in Duffy’s head. “Are you sleeping with a felon?”

“He’s reformed,” Raylan answered blandly. 

Duffy looked torn between amusement and genuine surprise, like he hadn’t expected Raylan’s forthrightness. Raylan was surprising himself with it these days. 

“You think you can really trust this man?” Raylan hedged. “This FBI agent will sell you out. He’s going after the Crowders and I knowing fully well that trail will lead back to you.” Raylan pointed at him square in the chest, both brows raised. “You’re Detroit’s patsy.” 

He smiled knowing that goodwill wouldn’t get him anywhere. Wynn Duffy was a man only motivated to flip on his kind by fear. The kind of people Duffy worked for, they weren’t men that you wanted to be on the wrong side of. 

Wynn swallowed. “It sounds to me like you already know who your man is.”

“We have an inkling. Nothing I can take to his superiors or launch an investigation over.”

“Then it sounds to me like you don’t need a name so much as you want me to scare this man off your trail.”

Raylan remained silent. 

“I can’t give you a name, Deputy,” Wynn said. “I can, however, make certain individuals aware of this agent’s sloppy behavior.”

Raylan felt the early stages of gratification that signified victory. 

“He ain’t _your_ guy?”

“This man works for my employer’s… parent company. So to speak.”

Raylan wet his lips, pressing his thumb against his bottom lip. On a limb, he asked, “Detroit?”

Wynn remained silent but it was confirmation enough of the Marshal’s suspicion. The Marshals had a running hypothesis on how all of this was intertwined.

“I imagine they won’t be overjoyed with this Agent’s actions,” Wynn said. “Actions which, in your opinion, are putting their operations in Kentucky at such risk. Allegedly. I wouldn’t know anything about that, of course.”

Raylan refrained from rolling his eyes. “Of course.”

“This man tried having Raylan killed,” Boyd said. 

“And?” Duffy spread his hands. “This matters to me why?”

“Boyd-”

“And so I want Agent Barkley’s goddamn home address, Mister Duffy,” he demanded.

Duffy smiled. “So you do know who you’re after. You want to _advise_ this man to pursue other leads on your own?” he asked. “Why? Did we not agree it’s in all our best interests to allow me to take care of it?”

“Boyd,” Raylan growled warningly. 

There was something alight in Boyd’s gaze that Raylan had caught only a glimpse of when he had held that gun on Dickie Bennett. 

He placed a hand on Boyd’s arm. 

Looking satisfied with himself, Duffy said, “Well I thank you for the warning, Deputy. This wayward Agent will be warned off. That I can guarantee. Now you’ve got what you came for. Please get out of my motorcoach.”

Raylan nodded. “You should tell your _parent company_ to be more selective in their hiring process.”

“I’ll take your concern under advisement.”

With a firm grasp on the collar of Boyd’s denim jacket, Raylan led Boyd out of the motorcoach. Mikey was outside leaning against the side of the vehicle. 

“He’s all yours,” Raylan told him as they passed by. Raylan kept his grip firm on Boyd until they reached the car. 

Boyd swat him away. “Would you-!” He pushed away from him. “Raylan!”

“I told you to keep your mouth shut,” Raylan growled. “And, stupidly on my part, I believed you when you said you would.”

“I am a man of my word, Raylan, but you and I both know it’s that Agent Barkley that’s attemptin’ to ruin you!” Boyd said. He saddled up real close to Raylan, the chests of their jackets brushing. In a harsh sort of whisper he said, “Are you going to disallow a man his efforts, _his_ _right_ , to protect his family?”

The muscles in Raylan’s jaw jumped. He planted a hand on his cocked hip, the other hand being used to poke Boyd in the chest as he spoke. “First, saying you’re a man of your word directly after breaking your word is fundamentally-”

Without thought, Boyd took Raylan’s face in his hands and he kissed him. It was nothing overtly romantic or sexual, but a brief conversation. They were all each other had. He pulled away, Raylan’s breath hot on his face.

Raylan sucked on his teeth and smothered a smile. “I was in the middle of saying something.”

“I know. It was very annoying.”

“If Duffy doesn’t take care of this…” Raylan shook his head, worrying his lip. 

It didn’t seem possible that Duffy alerting his employers as to Barkley’s ambitious behavior wouldn’t scare him straight. 

“Do you think that AUSA fella is in on it?” Boyd asked, climbing behind the wheel. 

Raylan trailed after him, lowering himself into the passenger seat with a pained groan. His shoulder was throbbing and his head was killing him.

“Vasquez?” Raylan asked. Attempting and struggling to buckle his seat belt. 

“He was there during my interrogation.”

“Your _interview,”_ Raylan drawled in correction. “Yeah, mine too. But no, I very much doubt it. Man is so by-the-book it’s like he shoved the book up his ass.”

“You feeling okay?” Boyd asked as they were pulling back onto the road. 

The sun was setting now. The sky was being painted with watercolors; orange and pink. The further east they drove, deeper into the mountains and closer to their holler, the darker it grew; mountains blotting out the light. 

“Mmh. Feels like my head’s been jammed onto a stake,” he said. He kneaded at his brow and rubbed at his neck. “Right where my brain stem should be. Every time I move my head the stake gets further wedged into my brain.”

Boyd pulled a small orange bottle out of the small cubby in the dash and handed it to Raylan with a rattle. “Here. And put your sling back on.”

Knowing Boyd was right, Raylan complied. Only grumbling a little about the sling. 

The drive was a short twenty minutes back to Harlan. Raylan was passed out in his seat and snoring quietly as Boyd steered them to the house. It was raining softly, a steady beating against the windshield. Boyd hated to wake Raylan. Their nap that afternoon wasn’t nearly enough sleep for either of them. One slept in a holding cell and the other at his desk in a chair that wasn’t kind to injuries.

He stared longingly at their house that sat on their small hill, wishing he never had to leave it again. From the car he could see their garden. Their tomato plant was dwindling in the colder temperatures and he wondered how Raylan would feel about a greenhouse. Boyd could build one. 

Combing a hand through his hair, Boyd sighed and cut the engine. The abrupt absence of the heater was promptly noticeable as the cold began to seep into the car. 

He shook Raylan gently. “Raylan. C’mon, baby. We’re home.”

His boy blinked at him and scrunched his nose. “Mmh. Let’s sleep in the car.”

“I’m sure your back will appreciate that.”

Raylan hummed, fumbling with the seat belt. Inside, Raylan felt a swell of relief, letting his jacket fall onto the sofa in a rumpled mess. 

“This has been the longest day of my life,” Raylan complained half-heartedly, dragging himself into the kitchen. 

“It very possibly has,” Boyd agreed with his sentiment. 

It felt like weeks ago, the mess with Loretta and Coover. The whole mess with Dickie was only yesterday. Shit, everything was a goddamn catastrophe.

Raylan leaned into Boyd and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. His nose knocked against Boyd’s. 

“I need a damn drink,” Raylan said. He threw himself down at the kitchen table with a sigh. 

“I’m afraid you ain’t getting much more than water for a few days,” Boyd told him as he filled a glass of water for Raylan. “Shouldn’t drink with a concussion.”

“M’gonna strangle Dickie Bennett.”

“Not if I do it for you.”

“Boyd,” he said somberly. Boyd’s words addressed a concern in Raylan he was hoping was unfounded. “You can’t go after Dickie. Or Barkley.”

“Raylan-”

“You can’t.”

Logically, Boyd knew that. It didn’t temper his anger any though, knowing. “And why not?” he asked, pushing. 

Raylan’s face screwed up tight with swift anger. He slammed his fist down on the table causing his glass to rattle. “Because I don’t want to have to make that call!” He scraped a hand across his face and tossed his hat aside. “If you, God forbid, throw all this away I don’t want to know what call I’d make. Christ forgive me, Boyd, but I couldn’t live with it. Having to decide if I’d see you locked away or if I’d go down fighting with you. What kind of man that’d make me. I couldn’t live with-”

Raylan’s anger slipped away as quick as it came to him. It left him drained and nauseous. The days caught up to him and there was a sharp throbbing behind his eyes that made them sting and water. 

“Oh Raylan,” Boyd sighed. 

He reached out and grasped Raylan firmly by the nape of his neck. Gently, he guided him till his chin came to rest against Boyd’s chest, his face buried in the crook of his neck. Raylan all but collapsed against him. He combed his hand through Raylan’s hair, smoothing it back.

“I’m sorry, Boyd,” Raylan muttered. “I just- don’t ask that of me.”

Boyd felt guilt swell inside of himself. “I won’t, Raylan. I won’t ever ask that of you. What I did before you, the time after and before I mean. All that terrible stuff that I did in between. That was… a way of getting by.” It wasn’t a lie, but it still tasted ashy on his tongue. “You know me, Raylan.” It sounded like a plea to his own ears. A begging for Raylan to know him; for Boyd to have not been mistaken on that.

Raylan clutched at the back of Boyd’s jacket, his hands fisting into the soft denim. 

His grip remained tight as Boyd crouched before Raylan to better hold him. His knees ached against the hardwood floor but he ignored it. He just held Raylan tighter. He was almost afraid to let go. 

They remained that way for some time, until Raylan pulled away and said, “Let’s go to bed.” He whispered it in the still silence of the house. 

“Okay, Raylan.”

Silently, Boyd guided Raylan up the stairs to their bedroom. He helped him undress, trailing his mouth across every newly exposed patch of flesh. 

They made love, slowly and sweetly. Boyd’s gasps were soft but deafeningly loud to his own ears. Raylan’s hands were gentle as they ghosted over Boyd’s skin only to grip him with firm hands by the hips. Boyd wanted to communicate a million things to Raylan. He hoped his message came through with every choked plea, every time he pushed back, every kiss. He thought he communicated it well - that the way he knew he would be sore in the morning was confirmation enough. 

“Okay?” Raylan asked afterwards. He lay with an arm draped across Boyd’s chest. His fingers brushed across the scar there.

“More than,” Boyd answered. 

Raylan curled against Boyd’s side. “Love you.”

Boyd felt his heart racing in his chest. He rolled to kiss Raylan on his bare shoulder. “I love you, Raylan Givens.”  
  


* * *

  
“If I was you, I’d be looking into a change in occupation,” Ava drawled, exhaling a cloud of smoke. She took the lawn chair seat beside Raylan, crossing her legs. 

It was a nicer afternoon, warmer than the last several had been. Raylan was sure it would cool back down soon though, so they were trying to enjoy it as best they could. 

Helen was in the kitchen with Boyd making some potato salad. His laugh could be heard occasionally from the back porch where Raylan maned the grill. 

“Seems every time I see you boys lately you’re sporting new bruises.” She swept a hand over Raylan’s forehead, brushing back his hair where the cut on his brow was healing, leaving a faint white line. His arm hung in his sling but Ava hadn’t asked much about that and Raylan was grateful.

He exhaled a short laugh through his nose and took a drink from the beer he’d slipped past Boyd’s distracted eye.

“Yeah. Well, this wasn’t totally work related.” He gestured his gimp arm. 

“So not a new job so much as a new town, maybe.”

Raylan laughed. “Good luck to anyone attemptin’ to get Boyd out of Harlan. Only way he’ll go is in handcuffs.”

 _Or a body bag,_ he thought cynically.

“If anyone could manage such a thing it’d be you.” She said it with the utmost confidence, a sweet smile on her face. The sunlight shone through her blonde curls creating a halo around her head.

She was so stunningly beautiful that Raylan sometimes regretted that things hadn’t worked out between them. 

“I couldn’t convince you out of Kentucky,” he said. 

Ava rolled her eyes and took a drag of her cigarette. “You weren’t offerin’ to sweep me away on a white horse.”

“You thinks that’s what I’m trying to do with Boyd?” he asked. 

“I don’t think Boyd would want that, do you?” She chewed her cheek and shook her head. “Boyd doesn’t have any grand self-delusions about you. I thought you were my knight in shining armor, Raylan.” She laughed at how silly the whole notion was to her now. 

They had both treated each other like more than they were. Both wanting to be something they weren’t. Both telling themselves they were more than Harlan. Each other’s company had made it easy, for a time, to play pretend. 

“Boyd knows exactly who and what you are,” she continued. “He’d go with you. You just gotta ask at the right time.”

Raylan finished off his beer and eased himself to his feet to check the grill. “I don’t know what the hell to do with any of that, Ava.”

“Those about finished?” Boyd asked, opening the back door on noisy hinges. He was grinning at Raylan real wide. Not a care in the world, completely at ease here playing domestic with Raylan.

Raylan poked at the chicken with his spatula. “Just about.”

They ate at the dining table. It was a new table - new to them anyhow. Raylan hadn’t been able to stomach eating at Arlo’s table. He hadn’t said anything, just came home one day to Boyd unloading a table and chairs set from the bed of his pickup. He’d look at Raylan all innocent and said, ‘thought this might look better with the new paint color.’

Most of the furniture in the house had arrived in that fashion. 

Raylan let Boyd pick out most of the furniture and decorations in the home on his own. Boyd would ask for his opinion sometimes, but Raylan never had much of one. He didn’t really care, so long as it looked alright. He trusted Boyd to make that call. Even with his track record of calling a racist flag a curtain just because it was thumbtacked above a window. 

Helen served homemade potato salad and Ava dished out baked beans with bacon. Raylan set out the corncobs and chicken he had grilled. They had sweat tea and lemonade that Boyd and Raylan had made that morning.

It was good and Boyd looked happy so Raylan was happy. 

It acted as a strange reminder to Raylan. A reminder that there was something for him here in Harlan. These people were his family. This was what he had. 

After dinner, once Raylan and Boyd were having a glass of Bulleit and the women had stepped out to smoke, Boyd got a call from Johnny. 

Reading the caller ID, Boyd shot Raylan a look and took the call. 

“What can I do for you, cousin Johnny?”

Raylan watched as Boyd’s expression hardened and then, like a light switch, turned off. 

“I don’t quite see how that has anything to do with me or mine. Now we’re family, Johnny, you and I, but I already explained this to you once and I ain’t enthusiastic about repeatin’ myself. My loyalty ain’t with you or daddy’s business no more. They belong with Raylan Givens. With everyone’s best interest in mind, you might wanna quit callin’ with regards to your less than legal ventures. Understand?”

Boyd listened to Johnny speak for a minute. 

“Getting involved with those men ain’t gonna pan out for you, Johnny.”

Boyd’s eyes connected with Raylan’s.

“Because those men are on Deputy Givens’ radar already. Like I said, if Raylan needs to get involved in your affairs there ain’t nothing I can do to stop him.”

A beat passed. 

“Goodbye, Johnny.”

“Should I ask what he wanted?” Raylan asked. 

“I’m confident you can deduce the overall theme easily enough.” Boyd picked up a dish rag and kneaded it in his hands mindlessly. “I feel it’s best I don’t say any particulars. I meant what I said but I would still prefer not to needlessly incriminate him.”

Raylan nodded understandingly. “The Marshals don’t currently have an open investigation on Johnny,” he told Boyd. “He ain’t never been arrested or charged for anything.”

“He hasn’t done anything illegal to my knowledge,” Boyd said truthfully. “I’d like to keep it that way. If he tells me otherwise, well, I’ll tell you about it if you ask about it.”

It sounded fair to Boyd but he knew the lawman in Raylan wouldn’t be so enthusiastic. It was the best Boyd could offer at the moment. 

Apropos to nothing, Boyd asked, “Would you help me build a greenhouse?” 

“What?”

“A greenhouse. Out in the yard.” He swept a hand towards the window that overlooked the backyard. “The tomato plant is dying and the mint will go soon. It’s getting colder faster this year and I haven’t had the time. I’d hate to buy things at the store that we can grow ourselves.”

The part of Raylan that remembered his days as a kid living off of peanut butter sandwiches appreciated the idea. He remembered weeks when Arlo was too drunk and his mama too sick to do the shopping. If he was lucky, Arlo might leave a small wad of bills behind and Raylan would have to parse out how to make it stretch. The idea of growing their own food appealed to Raylan when Boyd started planting a garden in the yard. 

“I’ve been doin’ some reading,” Boyd said. “We wouldn’t even have to wire up a heater if we planted the right vegetables-”

Raylan cut Boyd’s train of thought off with a firm kiss. His lips were a little chapped but Raylan didn’t mind. He smiled against Boyd’s lips. “I think it’s a fine idea.”

“Oh-!” Ava stopped short in her tracks and the door clattered shut behind Helen. “I keep walking in on the two of you,” she muttered under her breath. “I’m sorry.” For what it was worth, she did look rather apologetic. 

Helen, however, was grinning ear to ear. “I ain’t apologizing,” she said. She more or less ignored them as she passed by, her hand brushing against Raylan’s shoulder, to start picking up dishes and leftovers.  
  


* * *

  
They went to the hardware store in the morning but couldn’t find what they were after and decided to drive up to the lumber and hardware shop in Evarts. 

“They got that garden shop up there anyhow,” Boyd celebrated. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard along to a Pete Seeger tape that was playing five string banjo over the speakers. The cold had seeped back into the holler overnight and Boyd was in a good mood about it. It was infectious. 

“What about all that glass?” Raylan asked. “You budgeted this out?” 

He had so far been following Boyd’s lead but found himself a little worried about the cost. He hadn’t been working the mines very often recently and while Raylan didn’t mind providing, he hadn’t really looked at the overall cost of this project. 

“It ain’t glass. Polycarbonate sheets,” he explained. “They’re a whole hell of a lot more affordable.”

“Where do we get that?”

Boyd shrugged. “There’s a Home Depot in Lexington. Ain’t there?”

Raylan rolled his eyes. “There’s one in Morristown, a little closer. ‘Bought the same drive.”

“I ain’t been to Tennessee in awhile,” Boyd said. “That’s down there by Cherokee.”

Raylan let out a low whistle. “Ain’t been down there in ages.”

“Remember Dale Campbell’s lot down there? We camped out there for almost two weeks before your mama somehow got a hold of Dale’s mama. Remember you sayin’ you got an earful from Francis.”

Raylan chuckled. “I surely did. I was tense that whole drive home wonderin’ if she’d told Arlo.”

“Did she?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No she never said a thing to him.”

He remembered summer days spent at Cherokee Reservoir and Lake Cumberland alike. Everyone at Evarts High knew someone who’s family had a lot at one of the two. Jamie Toliver’s family had a whole lake house at Cumberland where he’d throw parties for the football team. Boyd had gotten he and Raylan an invite one time by way of being Bowman’s brother. Raylan hardly remembered that weekend. 

“Your mama was a strong woman, Raylan. Even when she was in a bad way.”

“Yes, she was.”

“I’ll call both, see if they have what we need.”

“Hm?”

“The Home Depot’s,” he explained. 

Raylan nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.”

In Evarts they loaded up on lumber and all the nuts and bolts for the project. At the gardening store Boyd picked out some sprouts and potting supplies. They swung back around the house to drop things off and then loaded up for Morristown. 

It was late in the day when they had purchased everything they would need. Boyd, simplistic blueprints in hand, surveyed for a spot in the yard. He settled on a decently even and level plot several yards from the back porch and close to the ground water well. 

It quickly rolled over into a two day job.

Raylan called the office to ask for proper convalescent leave. It was an easy enough thing, considering how hard of a time Art usually had getting Raylan to take care of himself. 

“Take the week, Raylan. You know, like anyone who recently sustained a concussion and the beating you have might,” Art said over the phone. “Hell, I was shocked you didn’t show up yesterday. Made me lose a bet with Rachel, by the way. I might be eating my words, Raylan, but that boy might actually be good for you.”

“Yeah,” Raylan agreed, “Art. He just might be.”

Art had laughed. “What’s the world coming to?”

“I honestly could not say.”

They woke up early the next morning. Raylan made coffee and Boyd happily removed the tarp from their haphazard structure in the yard.

“You’re sure about this?” Raylan asked, hammer in hand and a nail held between his teeth. 

Boyd paused in his own hammering to level Raylan a glare. “Yes. For the last time, son. It ain’t gotta be perfect. Just get it on there.”

The structure was already up. All that needed doing now was attaching the siding and door. It was gratifying, seeing their work come together. 

Raylan’s shoulder was doing surprisingly well under the strain. Boyd kept a close eye on him and only allowed him to do the less intensive lifting. Any wince from Raylan earned him a sharp look from Boyd and a ten minute timeout. 

They finished their greenhouse before sundown. It wasn’t much. A seven by ten lean-to with plastic walls. 

Raylan shivered and stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. He tossed the hammer down by their toolbox. 

Boyd was grinning wickedly and Raylan laughed. 

“What?”

“Nothin’,” he said. “Just never seen that look on your face outside of every time I failed to get a charge on you to stick.”

Boyd laughed, his head thrown back. His throat was wrapped in a blue scarf. “The gratification of a hard days work, my friend.”

“Mmh. I never saw this for you.”

“I can’t very well say that I foresaw this in my future myself.”

Raylan bumped his hip against Boyd’s and rested his head on his shoulder. The two of them surveying the child of their labor.

“I’ll add shelves or tables later,” Boyd said. “Make it look real fine.”

Raylan hummed.

The sun was getting low in Harlan, struggling for purchase over the peaks of the mountains. 

“Let’s get chickens.”

Raylan snorted. “One thing at a time, darlin’.” His cell started to buzz in his pocket. “Hold on. Art?” he answered the call. He got quiet and a frown started to crease his brows as he listened to his boss. “Shit. You need me to come in in the morning? I mean- what’s that-? Sonofabitch. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks, Art.”

“Everything alright?” Boyd asked. 

Raylan nodded. “Agent Barkley’s dead.”

Boyd pulled away just far enough to see Raylan’s face. “Well. I did not see that coming. It wasn’t me.”

“I know it wasn’t _you,_ asshole.” Raylan tapped his cell against his thigh. 

“Do _they_ think it was me?”

“No.” Raylan shook his head emphatically. “No. Art said Barkley’s case against both of us was weak and they were gonna have to drop it if Barkley didn’t disclose his source.” He sighed, his breath forming a cloud in front of his nose. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “Shit.”

“I suppose this means Mister Duffy made good on his promise to ward Barkley off,” Boyd drawled. He rubbed his hands together to generate heat. “Just not under the terms you intended. I can’t say I’m especially sorry to hear it. Either way, that’s that problem taken care of.”

Raylan looked at Boyd, meeting his dark eyes. He had a twisting feeling in his gut.

”I’m sorry, Raylan,” Boyd offered. “I know you’d’ve preferred different.”

Raylan wasn’t so convinced that he would have.

“Yeah,” he said. He took Boyd’s hand in his own and held tight. “Yeah, I guess. Let’s go inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the time to update sooner than I intended!
> 
> You can find their greenhouse here https://www.etsy.com/listing/814859871/diy-7x10-lean-to-greenhouse-building
> 
> This whole fic has been written while listening to, almost exclusively, local Kentucky band Bendigo Fletcher.  
> Listen and you’ll understand.


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII.**

The early hour was not kind to Raylan but despite the very little sleep he had caught last night, he dragged himself out from the comforts of his bed nonetheless. He extracted himself carefully from Boyd; his boy’s legs intertwined with his, his arm thrown over Raylan’s waist. 

“What are you doing up?” Boyd squinted against the assault on his eyes from the stove’s overhead light. He shuffled into the kitchen on socked feet and leaned heavily against the doorjamb.

The waistband of Raylan’s pajama pants fit loosely on his narrow hips, exposing a strip of tanned and toned skin. He shrugged, holding a rubber spatula in hand. “I thought I’d make breakfast. Hope pancakes’ll do. All we have is, like, three cartons of Bisquick.” He swung the spatula in the direction of the open cabinet where the pancake mix sat alongside an array of canned vegetables and a large container of peanut butter.

The clock on the microwave was proudly flashing an ungodly hour and Boyd shook his head. “It’s four in the damn morning,” Boyd said. He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger while his vision slowly adjusted. 

Again, Raylan shrugged. “Thought we’d eat together is all.”

Boyd hummed, doubtful. “I’ll, um. I’ll just go rinse off then.” He gestured at the stairs with his thumb. “Make some coffee?”

Raylan nodded. 

Boyd kissed him. He tasted like mint toothpaste and smelled like Old Spice. 

“I gotta head into the office later,” Raylan told him. “The shit with Agent Barkley.”

A lurching feeling of vacillating reservation unfurled in the pit of Boyd’s belly. The clicking of their ancient gas stove disrupted the quiet of the kitchen. Wetting his lips, he still tasted Raylan there. 

With a lack of agency, he said, “Alright.” 

  
  
  


His business for being in Lexington didn't take much time and Raylan was annoyed over having to make the drive at all. It had started to snow on the drive down to Harlan.

The chill that had settled into the holler had quickly permeated into every corner of Harlan and their home was of no exception. Raylan resolved to have someone come take a look at their heater. It was something that he had been avoiding. They didn’t like having people in the house. It opened their lives up to conversation - questions from nosey locals and curious strangers. All because one contractor couldn’t keep his mouth shut about the resident queers. 

Wrapping himself in a heavy barn jacket of pale canvas, Raylan marched out to their greenhouse. He took with him a rusted watering can. His leather boots crunched frozen and dying grass, leaving bootprints in the thin layer of snow that was slowly coating the earth. He made quick work of watering the plants and checking the generator had enough charge to keep the crappy heater running. The mint was wilting but the vegetables seemed to be growing fine. 

Back inside the living room, the weatherman on their crappy box TV set promised snowfall would continue through the night and, in turn, Raylan longed for sunshine. He wondered how Boyd could stand it, spending all his day swallowed up in the oppressive sweltering belly heat of some dog-hole mine. Only to step out into the sharp chill of Kentucky winter.

With effort, he pushed any and all thoughts of coal mines from his head. He tried listening to the news anchor but they had moved onto trivial local stories out of Lexington.

He realized he was grinding his teeth only when he stopped.

Sighing, he swept a hand across his face and itched at his beard. He needed out of the house and away from all the little things here that just made him think about all the ways he had allowed himself to settle in Harlan. 

It drove him wild, all the small ways that he and Boyd had attempted to make this house something new; something _theirs_. From the fresh coats of paint on the walls to the new furniture. The mail on the kitchen table mistakenly addressed to either _Mr and Mrs Boyd Crowder_ or _Mr and Mrs Raylan Givens._ Those always got a riot out of Boyd. It would take him ages the first few times it happened to get him to stop laughing about it. Raylan remembered the first time, just a spam add for a grass feed and sod shop. Boyd waved that little piece of cardstock around all evening like it were a winning lottery ticket - even showed it to Ava when she stopped by for supper. It had stayed on the fridge for close to a month and never failed to make Boyd grin like a fool every time he’d look at it while getting the damn orange juice out.

Raylan would appreciate an emphasis on _attempted._ This was theirs, legally, of course, but it felt like playing pretend to him some days. Like the whole place was built out of foam board walls, just a set piece in a crappy b-movie no one would pay to see. It was delicate, unable to stand stress. 

There was a timer counting down in Raylan’s head and ever since the shit with the Bennett’s blew over he knew their time was running short.

He needed out but he wasn’t going to leave without Boyd.

There was a corrosive itch that he felt across his skin and he scratched at his forearm.

“God damnit, Crowder,” he cursed under his breath, grabbing his keys. 

  
  


Ava Randolph had been Raylan’s neighbor since he was a boy. He didn’t know her all that well when they were kids, but he remembered a small girl with blond braids that lived a few miles down the street. He remembered that his momma would sometimes drop him off at the Randolph’s to catch the bus. Their house had always looked nicer, at least from the outside. Ava’s daddy would paint it every so often and her momma would keep the lawn looking real nice. 

He remembered her at fifteen, her freshman year, and how she turned heads in the halls of Evart’s High. He’d say hi to her sometimes and she’d smile real pretty at him. He remembered her dating Bowman and how he would sometimes see her when he followed Boyd to a few football parties.

Even though she had moved, he knew the drive to Ava’s well. He suspected he would always know the drive. Even if she were to move again, at this very moment, he believed he would find his way. She was just one of those people, he supposed. One of those people you were stuck with, despite where life led the two of you. 

Ava’s smile was bright when she answered the door. 

“Raylan,” she said, his name rolling off her tongue like honey. “Aren’t I surprised.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, removing his hat as Ava allowed him in. “I shoulda called first.” He wiped his boots on the doormat. 

“That’s alright.” She led him into the kitchen that smelled strongly of coffee and something sweet. She poured him a cup and set it before him at the counter. She left it black but Raylan knew where she kept the sugar and creamer. “Have you eaten? I got some leftover breakfast casserole I can heat up if you’re hungry.”

“I’m alright,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I got work in a few, but you’re welcome to keep me company,” she told him. “I won’t be the best host. I was just about to start gettin’ ready.”

“That’s alright. It was rude of me to just show up uninvited, I shouldn’t have-”

She shushed him. “You know I don’t mind, Raylan. You’re practically family, aren’t you? You and Boyd bein’ good as married.”

“Are we now?”

He was amused by the perspective but he knew had it come from anyone else he would have been annoyed by the presumption. Ava knew them though, knew them well. She hosted them for home cooked supper and came by for drinks on their porch. She called them goddamn family when most of Kentucky would gladly have nothing to do with them.

“Sure. You two have more love for each other than most married folk I know.”

Raylan hummed and took a sip of his coffee.

Ava rolled her eyes skyward with a fond smile. “Like pulling teeth with you sometimes. Two of you were always gonna wind up right where you are, you ask me.”

Raylan raised a brow. “You find religion or something?”

She laughed. “Just been watching a lot of Oprah I guess.”

“What about you, then?” he asked. “You think you’re following someone’s preordained destiny for your life?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Raylan. Would be nice though. If everything happened for a reason. Give some of the bad a little good.”

“Silverlinning?”

She shrugged and said, “Anyway. I outta go shower. You’re welcome to whatever’s in the kitchen if you get hungry. Make yourself at home.” 

Not being an avid television viewer, Ava only had the same basic cable package as he and Boyd. Turning on the TV, Raylan settled for whatever was on the channel she had left it on. Making do with some drama-comedy piece about a woman and her teenaged daughter. Raylan couldn’t grasp the plot of it but he didn’t mind.

The shower running in the upstairs bathroom caused the water to rush loudly through the old pipes. It sounded, almost, to Raylan, a whole lot like rainfall. His eyelids grew heavy and he was hopeless to fight the inevitable. 

Low voices in the foyer woke Raylan some undefined amount of time later.

Ava’s soft inflection said, “I really didn’t wanna wake him.”

“You really ought to of.”

“Boyd.”

Boyd sighed, sounding beat. Raylan could practically see him from behind his eyelids, running both his hands through his hair in that way he would do when he was stressed. He was usually on a shorter fuse after shifts. 

“I don’t think he’s been sleeping well,” Boyd was saying. “He, uh, ever since Dickie strung him up like that he’s been, mmh, tense. Agitated. I ain’t sure if it’s cos of that or something else.” He carefully side-stepped any mention of FBI agents or drug mafia.

“It’s not like I care,” Ava said, “if he sleeps on my damn sofa. He could stay all day if I didn’t have work. I actually do like having y’all around, you know?”

“I don’t see how come.”

“You sound like him sometimes, you know that? And him too - sounding like you. Sometimes one of you will open your mouth and it’ll sound like the other’s words coming out. Like you was possessin’ one another.”

Boyd didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Well, Ava, I don’t exactly know what to say to that. But I can assure you it ain’t nothing so biblical. I’ll see him home safe.”

Drowsy with sleep and doing everything in his power to rouse himself, Raylan sat up and stretched his legs. His jaw popped when he yawned. 

“You have a nice nap?” Boyd asked, sauntering into the family room, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coveralls. He was filthy, covered head to toe in coal dust. Only his face had been crudely wiped clean with what seemed like a not very clean rag. His bruises had faded, leaving his handsome face nearly unmarred aside from a slightly crooked nose. 

The soot and grime made his teeth seem all the more white when he smiled. 

“Really didn’t mean to.”

Boyd grunted. “S’alright. Ava don’t seem to mind. For some mysterious reason she isn’t sick of you yet. She’s gotta head out though, to the salon. I came to take you home.”

“Did you have any idea Ava’s couch was so much nicer than ours?”

“I did,” Boyd said simply.

“I’ve spent a considerable amount of time here at our lovely Ava’s home. If you recall, Raylan.”

Raylan had nearly forgotten about all of that. He had almost forgotten that there ever was a time that he and Boyd weren’t _He and Boyd._

“Oh. Right,” he said.

Boyd smiled and offered his hand. There was dirt packed under his blunt fingernails. Raylan took it, grasping it firmly. He steadied Raylan with his free hand on his elbow. 

“C’mon,” he said. “Ava’s gotta head to work. You can’t stay here. You can nap on your own considerably less luxurious sofa.”

Raylan hummed. He saw her leaning against the door frame, dressed in her bootcut jeans and a checkered coat. “Sorry, Ava.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, waving it off.

“Didn’t mean to pass out like that,” he said by way of an apology.

“You are more than welcome to sleep on my sofa,” she said. “I just got work. Another time, hm?”

Raylan smiled. “Yeah. Course.”

He followed Boyd out of the house - watched as Boyd kissed her goodbye on the top of her head. He trailed behind Boyd’s pickup in his SUV. He drove in silence, watching the trees fly by the windshield. 

As he drove, he wondered how far into the trees he would have to drive to find the people in the hills. His momma would sometimes tell him about them. The people she would tell him were his kin. She would weave stories about her childhood with his Aunt Helen and their cousins. Never one to be ashamed of her bloodline. 

Raylan envied that about her. 

“Raylan? You alright?” Boyd asked. His keys clattered as he tossed them down on the kitchen counter. He kept a bowl on the counter that was intended for keys but quickly became more of a catch-all. Currently it was filled with loose chewing gum, the key to the greenhouse, a lighter, and an unopened pack of Lucky Strikes. “Raylan?”

“Hm?”

Boyd rolled his eyes, leaning heavily against the counter. “Son, you get any sleep at all last night?”

Raylan nodded and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger until he was blinking away black spots. “Yeah. Yeah, a little.”

“Your car’ll be outta the shop soon, right?” he tried.

“Yeah, uh, Monday morning I can pick it up.”

Boyd drummed his fingers against the counter top. “Good. That’s good.”

He really was filthy. The coal dust and filth from his coveralls probably rubbed off onto the fabric of the bench seat in his Ford. His hands left smudges on the counter. Raylan’s eyes roamed over him - noted the way it had caked into every crack on his hands and under his nails; discolored nail beds. He wondered how much of it had found its way into the house right under his nose.

“Raylan, honestly, baby,” Boyd said. “You alright?”

“Can you take that off?”

“What?”

“Those coveralls,” he said harshly and gestured up and down Boyd’s frame. “Could you take them off? _Please.”_

“I…” Boyd began to nod slowly. “Okay. Yeah, just- I’ll just toss them in the laundry room.” He disappeared down the stairs and, once out of sight, Raylan sagged. 

He made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl. When Boyd came back up - free of his coveralls but still filthy with cave dirt and sweat - it was to a Raylan just barely keeping it together. He felt wired, from his fingers clear down to his toes. He could see himself in his mind’s eye strung up with Emulex and Boyd held the detonator. 

He approached Raylan with cautious steps, stopping just a few paces short of Raylan. His dark eyes roaved over his boy as if looking for something intangible.

“What’s wrong, Raylan?”

Boyd didn’t understand.

“I don’t know,” Raylan said softly - desperately. He wanted to tear his hair out, pull out his teeth. Watch himself shatter into a million pieces there on the linoleum floor. “I mean, shit, Boyd, I got the man killed. No trial or jury. I went to Duffy, all but asked him to run around the law and have the man offed. I _should_ feel guilty.” 

“You did what needed done,” Boyd argued him. “You know the law doesn’t always get the job done. The system doesn’t always work-”

“You’re a shining example of it.”

“Cheap shots, Raylan.”

Shaking his head, Raylan sank to the kitchen floor. He pushed both hands through his hair and rested his elbows on his knees. 

With a sigh, Boyd folded his knees and met Raylan on the floor. It was cold through his jeans and not so comfortable. The house still smelled like the breakfast Raylan had cooked them that morning. 

“I’m sorry,” Boyd said.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, alright?” He rolled his eyes before plastering an expression of carefully crafted empathy on his face. 

“What the hell for?” he asked, resigned.

“It was my impression that I owed you an apology for being an asshole,” he said. “Look, Raylan, I don’t always see sense when it comes to your moral compass but I don’t believe you killed that man. Indirectly or otherwise. And, moreso, I don’t believe it matters. To you or to God or whoever. You ain’t so concerned with the death of a man you know was bad. Barkley wanted you gone, Raylan. He set up the game, the rules, the stakes. You was just a better player than him.”

Trust Boyd to perceive it all as some cosmic game.

He rested his chin on his knee and watched Boyd with curious fascination. He watched as he leaned his back into the cabinet opposite him, making himself comfortable as though he was willing to stay just where he was all night if Raylan decided to do so. 

Part of Raylan felt he had been there, on the kitchen floor of this house with Boyd Crowder, all his life. 

Boyd was like a current, one which dictated the motion of Raylan’s ship, pulling him into Harlan and washing him up on the shores. Shipwrecked, Raylan stayed. He wondered if every bait and switch was intended, if this was all some predestined path like Ava had said. If he was destined to follow Boyd in circles this way for eternity. He didn’t mind it, if he looked down and saw some golden string of fate was tying him irrevocably to Boyd. It was only the implication of a lack of control that annoyed him.

“You really want to stay here?”

Boyd picked at the black under his nails. “Well, my ass is starting to go numb and I should probably shower-”

“I mean Harlan.”

“Hm?”

“Kentucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything more than exactly that,” he said.

Boyd’s dark eyes averted from Raylan and instead focused themselves on the floor. Quietly, very quiet, he said, “I don’t know. Where the hell would we go?”

“Florida is always there,” he said. “I can put a request in for wherever.”

“Just somewhere with a beach, huh?”

Raylan shrugged. “Everyone likes the ocean, Boyd.”

“People like mountains too,” he countered. 

“These ain’t mountains. You ever been to the Rockies?”

“I seen ‘em. They’re ostentatious. What? You gonna move us to Colorado?”

“Utah’s real nice,” he said as though he actually wanted to go back to Salt Lake.

“Sure, if you like looking at strip-mined mountain tops and gettin’ preached at by Mormons,” he said. “I _have_ met mormons. They’re real judgy.”

Raylan barked a short laugh and shook his head. “Asshole.”

Boyd was smiling though.

“There isn’t anywhere you’ve been dyin’ to go? Someplace you always wanted to see?” he asked.

“Can’t think of anywhere.”

He remembered what he said to Boyd all those years ago. His final parting words before he left this place all behind in his exhaust. They had been out by the creek - just the two of them.

_“You’re always talkin’ about those stories you read,” he’d said, jerking a finger down at the Jack London novel on the floorboard beside the stick-shift. The corners were rounded from wear and pale yellow sticky notes protruded from between the pages. “My story ain’t gonna end in this town.”_

His voice no more raised from a whisper, like he were speaking some dark truth to the holler, Raylan said, “I can’t die here, Boyd.” 

“No one’s asking you to,” he said. “In fact, I implore you to do the opposite if it’s all the same to you.”

Raylan closed his eyes, letting his head drop against the cabinet door. He winced from the impact. 

“Connecticut.”

“Hmm?” Raylan peered down his nose at Boyd.

“I’ve never been to New England,” Boyd said. “We could live on the water.”

“There’s a lot of people in New England.”

“Well who says we gotta live by all them people?” he asked. “I ain’t asking you to move to New York City with me.”

“But you’d take suburbia?”

Boyd shrugged smally. “Sure.” His cheeks warmed red and he looked away, rubbing at a scuff mark on the toe of his boot with the pad of his thumb. “I been up in Clover Hill a few times, you know?”

“No. What for?”

“Lookin’ at houses.”

There was a pregnant silence where Raylan floundered for something to say. The wind was picking up and caused the screen door to rattle. “We can’t afford a thing in Clover Hill.”

“I got some money saved,” he said easily. “Ava’s momma used to clean houses up there, you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Again, he shrugged. “Well. I went lookin’ one afternoon. It’s real nice, that neighborhood.”

It was easy to forget sometimes what a damn romantic Boyd could be. Daydreaming about some domestic impossibility in homes that were unaffordable on either of their salaries.

“The architectural style’s a little Antebellum, ain’t it?”

Boyd snorted an unflattering laugh, grinning wickedly at Raylan. 

“So not set on Connecticut exclusively then,” Raylan said, returning his boy’s smile. “Maybe near Boston or New Hampshire.”

“These places sound expensive too.”

“I imagine they are.”

“I’d have to go back to school.”

Raylan laughed. “Betchu could get into Ivy League.” 

“Ha ha,” Boyd drawled.

It was said in jest but there was a time when Raylan really had thought Boyd might. He remembered the college applications that he had allowed to accumulate. He’d hide them from his daddy, stuffed into the bottom of his bookbag.

“Dunno. I think you’d look damn good in a sweater and some loafers,” he said. He knocked the toe of his boot against Boyd’s.

“You ain’t funny, Raylan.”

He shrugged. “What about Maine?”

“Anyone even live in Maine? Snows there too much for you anyway.”

“Suppose I do put in a transfer request. That’d be alright?” he asked.

Boyd looked like he was thinking real hard on it. He started back up on scratching the grime out from under his thumb nail. His voice tender, he said, “I go where you go.”

* * *

The Marshal’s office was on the third floor of the district courthouse. Boyd knew this because of numerous past visits to the office, some of his own volition and others less so. He would know this anyway because of the directory on the wall just beside the elevator.

It had started to snow and Boyd moved quickly from the parking lot to the front doors of the courthouse. He was still shaking quickly melting flakes off his jacket and out of his hair when the elevator arrived on his floor.

Curiously, he spotted a pretty woman in heels speaking with Raylan. She was dressed in a houndstooth skirt and her hair spiraled down one shoulder in entirely too perfect curls. He watched them, a question on Raylan’s face. From her posture their discussion was something important to her. As she left, her hand lingered on Rayaln’s arm. It was a familiar and intimate gesture.

There was a pinch between her brows and a stiffness to her posture, despite this she managed a polite smile Boyd’s way as she left the Marshal’s office. He could smell her perfume as she passed. 

Inside, Boyd’s presence drew its usual amount of attention.

“Aren’t you popular today?” Tim mused under his breath as Boyd approached. 

After quickly closing the notepad he had been scrawling in, Raylan leaned back in his chair, humming, and smiled indulgently for Boyd. “What are you doing here?” He reached out and smoothed out a wrinkle in Boyd’s jacket. 

“Who was that?” he asked meaninglessly, just idle curiosity, jerking his head in the direction the woman had left.

“Hm? Oh, Winona.”

Boyd’s eyes grew round with intrigue. “Your ex-wife Winona?” He spun around as if making to follow after her but Raylan gripped his jacket tight and laughed.

“Yes, my ex-wife Winona,” he said with faux exasperation, still grinning. “You ain’t goin’ after her, fool.”

“Wah- I, I would just like to introduce myself,” he contested, hand over his heart.

“And whatchu even gonna say?” he asked. “Hello, I’m the hillbilly your husband was screwin’ all through high school and now we’ve moved in together,” he said in a low whisper. As though that would keep half the office from hearing. 

Rachel did a poor job of smothering a laugh in her hands. Tim was staring wide eyed at his desktop screen but kept his face otherwise blank.

Boyd placed his hands on his hips. “Well, it would be quite the opening line.”

“I think she’s alright,” Raylan said. “So again, what are you doin’ here?”

He grinned real big. “Lunch?”

“Sure. Whatchu want?”

“I could go for Mexican,” Tim interjected. 

“Get your own damn lunch,” Raylan told him. 

“That bar up the street’s got real good burgers.”

“Sounds good to me.” Raylan stood and grabbed his jacket. 

Making a decision that thoroughly caught Boyd off balance, Raylan kissed him. Nothing ostentatious or dramatic. Just a brief thing to the corner of Boyd’s mouth. All the same and unsurprisingly, it drew the attention of the office - mostly quiet looks of surprise, a few co-workers attempting not to openly stare. 

He grinned shamelessly at Boyd. “Let me tell Art I’ll be out. Be right back.”

Unable to stem a natural curiosity, Boyd turned the small notebook his boy had been so quick to shut towards himself with a single index finger. He hesitated though, Raylan’s computer catching his gaze. There was a map of the continental United States open on the desktop, the window minimized into the top corner but heavily zoomed in until it was only showing the north-east coast. There was a transfer request form that dominated the screen and Boyd was unable to take his eyes off it for several moments.

With a new urgency, Boyd leafed through the pages until he found a sheet on which the words _CONN, RI,_ and _MASS_ were written across the top in Raylan’s messy scrawl and then underlined. Below those, he wrote a mess of arrows pointing to short _pros_ and _cons_ lists. He wrote _ocean_ down for pros of all three and _snow_ down under cons. 

Boyd grinned to himself, seeing where he had ~~_NY_~~ and ~~_MAINE_~~ written and scratched out after very long cons lists. 

“Givens, you idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

Looking away he saw Deputy Brooks very subtly watching him. He wondered what she thought of all this, because surely Raylan had shared his plans with her, eager for approval before bringing it up to Boyd. He wondered which state was in the lead in Raylan’s mind.

“You ready?” Raylan asked, returning. He pulled his overcoat on, his grin still in place.

Boyd quickly shut the notebook, returning it to its place. He didn’t think for a moment that he hadn’t been caught peeking but he knew they wouldn’t bring it up either.

He put his hat on and said, “You comin’?”

Grinning like a madman right there in the middle of the office, Boyd trailed after his boy. Their greenhouse hadn’t been so difficult to construct, they could easily build another.

Mostly to himself, he said, “I go where you go.”

All the same, Raylan heard him say it, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Just like that?”

Boyd laughed, shaking his head. “Just like that.”

Rolling his eyes, Raylan said, "Get your ass movin' then, Crowder. I'm buying."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my head they move to rhode island.
> 
> i'm so sorry by this late update. i've been extremely busy and went eight weeks with no computer or phone thus no writing.
> 
> thank you to everyone who stuck with this. i wish this chapter was longer but i didn't want to drag it out, i felt this story was at it's end and didn't need a long one. i hope you all enjoyed it <3


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